Love Island's Georgia Steel talks quitting reality TV amid horrid messages and death threats from trolls

Love Island star Georgia Steel has said online trolls have left her battling suicidal thoughts, and she’s now considering quitting reality TV as a result.

The reality TV star, who was a finalist on ITV’s ‘Love Island: All Stars’ spin-off show in February, has opened up about receiving hundreds of vile messages on social media. In an exclusive interview with ‘The Sun on Sunday’, the 26-year-old admitted that the comments left her feeling terrible and in a dark place.

Asked if she had suicidal thoughts, she said: “I don’t want to use that term lightly at all as so many people are affected by suicide and my heart goes out to them, but there were times where I was thinking, ‘What is the point? Everyone hates me’.

That is literally how I felt, like everyone hated me, and if it wasn’t for my family and my really, really close friends and their support then who knows, I could have gone down the road of suicidal thoughts. That’s why I want to speak out, because not everyone has a support network around them and it is those people we need to protect the most.”

Steel first came to public attention in 2018 when she appeared on the fourth series of ‘Love Island’. Back then, she was coupled up with Josh Denzel, and things seemed to be going well between the pair - until be brought another girl back to the villa. She briefly dated Jack Fowler, but then formed a relationship with Sam Bird. The pair left the villa together and dated for a further three months before parting ways.

At the start of the year, she returned to the ‘Love Island’ villa in the ‘All Stars’ spin-off show, and made it to the final with her now ex-boyfriend Toby Aromolaran, age 25. The pair were together for around a month after the show ended, before the relationship ended in March.

During the ‘All Stars’ show, however, some people didn’t take kindly to Steel being shown flirting with fellow Islanders Callum Jones and Tom Clare as everyone got to know wach other. As a result, she said her family were subjected to vicious trolling while she was on screen. She also said she did not leave her home for a week after returning home after her time on the show because of the death threats her family had received.

She continued to say that she turned off her phone to try to get away from the negative comments, and also moved back in with her family in North Yorkshire. She added: “I definitely, definitely felt trapped. If it wasn’t for my family and friends then that could have been really dark.

There are a lot of people out there who don’t have the support network that I do. I am glad it happened to me rather than anyone else in there because I know I can get through it. I have the support to get through it and I can get through it.

“I was scared my house was going to be egged or that something bad would happen to my car. I refer to my family home as my little retreat. It is in the middle of nowhere, with loads of trees and no one sees you because you are ­surrounded by nature and animals.” She also said she looked to her family for support and guidance: “Whenever I have some doubts or think, ‘Oh God, am I awful? Am I an awful person? Am I bad?’ I ask them.

Discussing the impact the trolls have had on her everyday life, she added: “You don’t know who the trolls are, so they could be anyone, that is what is scary. I could be walking down the street thinking, ‘Oh God, is she the one who wants to kill my family?’ That is the worst part. And when people came up to me and asked for a photo, I’d think, ‘Are you one of the trolls?’

She also made reference to previous tragic cases involving reality TV stars, and called for change. “We have seen it first hand when people come off television shows and have gone down really dark paths and something needs to change before it is too late.”

Becoming emotional, she went on: “I will get emotional here, but I just want to be a good person and I am still figuring that out. I needed my family around me at that time, with nothing else to stimulate me. That was the best decision because they reminded me that I am OK and helped build my confidence back up. They are my mum and dad, for heaven’s sake.”

Steel said her parents considered calling the police after they were forced to turn off comments on her Instagram account due to the amount of horrid comments that they were getting. She explained: “My brother got messages like, ‘How could you have a sister like this’, while my mum got, ‘You should be so ­disappointed that you raised a girl like this’. I hate saying these things out loud because it is just awful.

“The police can get involved but they can’t really do anything. These are people on anonymous accounts and we have no idea where they are, who they are or where they are from. My goal now is to stop it, and the way to do that is to get Instagram and TikTok to take a bit of responsibility with the trolling. Those are the companies that can change it, just by putting in a driving licence or something like that when you sign up. It would stop it all.”

Asked if she is ready to quit reality TV, she said “Yes, 100 per cent.” She added: “I have made a ­concrete decision. I don’t want to do anything that can be taken out of my control or alter how I am perceived. I am 26 now and I don’t want people to think that I am ­someone I am not, so I have taken a step back.”

But, this may not be the end of Steel’s career full-stop, as she revealed: “I would love to do Strictly Come Dancing or pursue serious ­avenues where I am not the entertainment as such. But reality TV, yeah, I will wash my hands of that one now.”