Love Island's Lucie Donlan almost QUIT the villa after girls 'ganged up' on her
14 July 2019, 12:11 | Updated: 15 July 2019, 07:17
The 21-year-old opens up about her tough time on the dating show and admits she found her female co-stars difficult to trust
Love Island's Lucie Donlan has revealed she almost quit the show after her female co-stars "ganged up" on her inside the villa.
The surfer and model was left sobbing in a string of dramatic scenes that left viewers concerned for her wellbeing after the girls told her to stay away from love interest Tommy Fury.
Claiming her rival Islanders had "drilled" it into TV partner Joe Garratt's head that she shouldn't be such close friends with the professional boxer, the 21-year-old confessed she almost walked out of the series.
"I did think about quitting," she admitted to The Sun.
“There was one night when I was really upset, because the girls had drilled it into Joe that I shouldn’t be spending all this time with Tommy.
“He came to talk to me about it but I was more upset by what they had done. After that, I didn’t really want to speak to them because I felt I couldn’t trust them enough. I thought if I did, they might bitch about me behind my back.
“I can remember sitting there crying and thinking, ‘Will it be like this all the way through? Oh God, I won’t be able to cope with that’. Love Island was meant to be fun.
"All I wanted was to have a laugh and try to find a boyfriend. But those girls are not like me. They like drama. It was like being in a school playground. I felt really alone and I didn’t know who I could talk to.”
An emotional Lucie told producers she wanted to leave Mallorca but was allegedly told to sleep on the decision.
Thankfully for the Cornish beauty, there was one female Islander who promised to stick by her during this fraught time, which ultimately persuaded her to stay.
She explained: "Maura and I were inseparable in the villa. I don’t know how I’d have done it without her.
"We both had a hard time and supported each other. When she first came into the villa, she said to me, ‘I realise how they’ve been treating you and I don’t like to see it, so I’m going to back you’.
"Then, when Arabella came in, she told the other girls immediately that she had seen what had been happening between them and me — that they had all ganged up on me.
"They denied it but they obviously realised bad things were being shown on TV. And they didn’t like it, so they backed off after that."
Lucie was eventually voted off from the dating show, along with her latest partner, 22-year-old Essex builder George Rains.
Both were brutally axed by their fellow islanders to save coupled-up Islanders Curtis Pritchard, 23, and Amy Hart, 26.
When the shock dumping was announced, she said: "I knew it was coming, there were too many people in that villa."
"We thought there was going to be some kind of dumping but we didn’t think it would be a double dumping. I wasn’t too shocked with what happened, I kind of expected it.
"I had a fair run in there. I dated Joe in there at the beginning, which was amazing. I had a lovely time with friends as well."
Love Island continues tonight at 9pm on ITV2.
