AMY Hart has opened up about the brutal trolling she faced after Love Island, revealing she was so crushed by cruel comments she couldn’t bring herself to watch her own series back.
The reality star, 32, who rose to fame on the 2019 summer edition of Love Island, made the emotional confession during an appearance on Fabulous’s brand new podcast, No Parental Guidance.
Amy Hart was supposed to have her fairytale. A summer of sun, romance and bikinis in the Love Island villa.
But when she walked out of the series heartbroken, what came next blindsided her and it wasn’t just Curtis Pritchard’s brutal U-turn.
The star said she’s only just now starting to feel ready to revisit the show that made her a household name.
“I think I'm actually close to watching it back,” she said.
“I reckon I'm probably about two years away from watching it.”
Amy shot to fame as the hopeless romantic who entered the villa genuinely looking for love and famously left the show heartbroken after being dumped by Curtis Pritchard.
But it wasn’t just heartbreak she was dealing with when she came out, it was a flood of personal attacks that left lasting scars.
“When I came out, everyone was like, 'ugliest Islander ever, you're the fat one, you're this, you're that,’” Amy recalled.
“Anyway, the other day on my Facebook memories, Casa Amor had obviously started that night, and my best friend who ran my socials had done a collage of all different pictures of us before we went in.”
She continued: “I've never seen any of those pictures before, so I was zooming in and I was like, 'Oh my God, I want to look like that again.'
"I looked amazing. I was like, 'I just want to look like that.’”
Amy explained she hasn’t watched the series back because of how painful it felt at the time, not due to lingering feelings about her ex, but the emotional toll the public backlash had on her.
“It's not about anyone else, I just felt like it would upset me a lot,” she said.
Now a mum to toddler Stanley and happily settled down with her partner Sam, Amy says she’s in a much stronger place.
Looking back at old pictures, she’s finally able to appreciate how good she looked at the time, despite the criticism.
Elsewhere in the podcast, Amy showed her sharp wit and honest humour hasn’t dulled since her villa days.
She dished on the chaos of parenting life, shared hilarious tales about hangovers, toddler tantrums, and birthday party disasters, and revealed how her little boy is already a dab hand with a beauty blender.
When I came out, everyone was like, 'ugliest Islander ever, you're the fat one, you're this, you're that
Amy Hart
“I get very excited about things, so I tell him everything and talk to him about everything,” she said with a laugh.
The Love Island alum, who now co-hosts the official Love Island podcast, admitted she juggles glam work life with the whirlwind of motherhood, complete with soft play, sleepless nights, and toddler meltdowns.
And while she jokes about the “slug’s eye” effect of losing interest in sex post-baby, Amy’s refreshingly candid take on parenting has earned her a new legion of fans – this time, mums who feel seen, not judged.
“People want us to hate each other,” she added of her relationship with ex Curtis.
“But we get on so well. He is actually my best interview always because I know how far I can wind him up."
Amy said she had met Curtis in a nightclub after Love Island and the couple were able to talk through things for over an hour.
She added: "I wish him well... but then when you think it was like literally five weeks".
"And now I've got an amazing husband and a little boy and stuff."
Barrage of hate
Back in 2019, the former air stewardess told an inquiry into influencer culture that she receives a barrage of abuse and death threats from people as young as 13 years old after appearing on the reality show.
Amy said she doesn't believe sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were supportive enough when it came to trolling.
Appearing in front of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee today, the former Islander recounted the abuse she was regularly receiving online.
She said: "Look at this barrage of messages someone has sent me before 7 o'clock in the morning telling me how much they hate me, how awful I am, why everyone hates me, how ugly I am."
Amy said she was getting trolled by people who said they are nurses and "people that have got husbands and children" and one death threat had been traced back to a 13-year-old.
