Love Island’s Marcel Somerville and Yewande Biala reveal how ITV2 ‘reality’ show producers create fake plots by urging contestants to have face-offs with rivals – as they speak to MPs over deaths of former stars
- Marcel Somerville and Yewande Biala are offering evidence in Westminster
- Contestants are telling MPs investigating reality TV about their treatment
- Scrutiny over Love Island after deaths of Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis
- MPs will also hear from former guest on Jeremy Kyle Show which was axed
Love Island stars Yewande Biala and Marcel Somerville today revealed how their conversations on the show were set up by producers to make better television.
The duo told MPs investigating reality TV that they would sometimes to be asked to ‘hold off’ talking about something until another time to better ‘capture the moment’.
The former contestants were offering evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in Westminster about their treatment on the ITV programme.
They spoke after Love Island came under intense scrutiny over the aftercare it offers following the deaths of former contestants Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis.
Marcel Somerville (left) and Yewande Biala (right, both pictured arriving at Portcullis House in Westminster this afternoon) are offering evidence on their treatment on the ITV show
Biala and Somerville appear before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee today
Talking about how the show was produced, Biala said: ‘I don’t really think the producers have a heavy hand in how you do things and what you say. I think, at the end of the day, it is reality TV.
‘There were instances where if I was sitting down having a conversation with somebody else and I was saying this is how I feel about this person, this is how I feel about this person, one of the producers could come up and say well, if you feel like that, would you not speak to that person?
‘And I think things like that have to happen in order to get the storyline out, in order to how I feel out, so the public can understand me better and the situation better.
‘It’s entirely left to you to be yourself. There’s no feedback given at all.’
Somerville added: ‘There were elements of time when, say for instance you were having a conversation about something that was going on in your experience and there would be times when they would ask you to hold off to another time when they could set up something to actually capture the moment.
The Love Island stars give evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee
‘So maybe you’d start talking about something and you’d be like ‘I’m feeling like this’, then someone would probably come in and basically say ‘can we just hold off on talking about this until a later date’.
Yewande Biala in her promotional photo for Love Island series five, released in May
‘But they wouldn’t necessarily say to you, ‘you need to talk about this’ or ‘you need to explain this in a certain way’.’
Somerville said he jumped at the chance to join Love Island, after his agent found him work on the reality series.
He said: ‘I was doing little shows with my band Blazing Squad, but they were few and far between. So when I got the opportunity to do the show, I jumped at it.’
Somerville, who appeared in the ITV2 series in 2017, said his management had been approached the year before to ask if he’d be interested in participating.
Somerville said the time spent being filmed was the easy part of taking part in Love Island.
He said that the sudden fame on exiting the island villa was more difficult to deal with than filming.
The rapper said: ‘You are in the spotlight. No matter what you do, anything that happens there is going to be a story about it.
‘Public break-ups – everything that happens. You are like, ‘this is the worst period of my life’. That was the worst period of doing Love Island.’
He suggested that more help was needed by contestants after the show had aired.
Biala (left) told the committee of MPs that being on the show was less intense than she expected from having watched previous series.
Somerville added: ‘Six months down the line when you are fully into dealing with the fame. They definitely changed it now with what happened to Mike and Sophie.’
Somerville said that after he left the show, he had contact with producers – but only due to other projects he was working on.
Beyond that, the former contestant said there was no support in place.
He said: ‘You are kind of left to your own devices. It wasn’t like a big thing of them contacting you. It wasn’t much of a ‘how are things going now’.’
With regard to being prepared for social media, he said: ‘Training-wise, I didn’t get told how to tweet or how to post, or what to expect from it.’
The former contestants are offering evidence this afternoon on their treatment on the show
Somerville said he would welcome a diversity of body types on Love Island.
He said: ‘It would definitely add something to the show. All different kinds of people fall in love.
‘I think it would be a good thing to have a bit of variance in the figures.’
Biala said that she did not feel pressure to look good, other than a natural wish to feel good about her body.
She said: ‘If you knew you were going to be in a bikini for eight weeks, you would want to look your best.’
Biala (right) on Love Island in Majorca in June with Amy Hart, Maura Higgins, Amber Gill, Molly-Mae Hague, Anna Vakili, Lucie Donlan and Elma Pazar
A contestant in this year’s series, Biala said she had applied herself.
Biala told the committee of MPs that being on the show was less intense than she expected from having watched previous series.
She said: ‘You watch it and there’s so much drama. But most of the time you’re just lying around. It was very chilled.’
The Irish former contestant said that dramatic events were not as frequent as the show presents.
She said: ‘I would say the storyline is created by you. I feel you have to create your own storyline. Every week is different. I thought it was going to be really intense.
‘Most of the time you are just hanging out. All you do is sit down and gossip really.’
Love Island has come under scrutiny over the aftercare it offers following the deaths of former contestants Sophie Gradon (left) and Mike Thalassitis (right)
The committee are discussing ‘representations of race, gender and body image and contestant preparedness for life after Love Island’.
MPs will also hear from a former guest on The Jeremy Kyle Show, which was axed by ITV in May following the death of participant Steve Dymond.
Show guests Dwayne Davison and Robert Gregory will offer evidence about their time on the show having claimed, according to MPs, that ‘the aftercare given to them was not robust and has had a serious negative impact on their lives’.
The committee has also been investigating the use of lie detector and DNA tests on the former show.
MPs will also hear from a former guest on The Jeremy Kyle Show, which was axed by ITV in May following the death of participant Steve Dymond.
MPs have criticised TV bosses for not knowing enough about lie detector tests.
Mr Dymond, 63, died around a week after reportedly failing a love-cheat lie detector test on Kyle’s daytime show.
The construction worker was found in his room in Portsmouth on May 9 after splitting from on-off fiancee Jane Callaghan.
ITV recently announced Love Island will run for two series next year.
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