ITV Love Island favourite opens up on hidden villa struggle after 10 years

A former Love Island contestant has opened up about a significant personal struggle she faced during her time in the Spanish villa a decade ago. The 32-year-old reality television personality, who finished as runner-up on the dating programme's 2016 series alongside her now-husband Alex, appeared on ITV's Good Morning Britain on Thursday July 2 to discuss her new book Lost Until Love: Learning to Find Myself Again.

The candid autobiography explores the star's experiences with motherhood and the devastating loss of her twin daughter during pregnancy. During the interview, Olivia revealed a hidden challenge she encountered while living in the renowned Mallorca villa.

When discussing her struggles with eating in front of others, presenter Ranvir Singh noted: "It's remarkable because you say in the book that eating in front of other people consistently like you had to in the Love Island kitchen was quite a big challenge for you because you were hiding your eating beforehand."

Olivia responded candidly about her disordered eating, explaining: "Yeah so my disordered eating sort of manifested itself in not wanting to be seen eating. I couldn't ever put food on my own plate and in Love Island you did have to for lunch and dinner. I speak about this a lot in the book about all the little things that we had in Love Island. And actually it became apparent to me that I would have to get over this fear. It acted as if it was exposure therapy."

When asked further about the root cause, Olivia shared: "I think it's a lot to do with control. I think it's a lot to do with how I process emotion." She emphasised that such struggles manifest from anxiety and depression, explaining: "Again like I said previously it's something that is continuously worked on throughout my life. It's not necessarily to do with the actual food it just might be manifesting itself in a different way."