Malin Andersson: When I left Love Island there was a lack of support

Andersson says more needs to be done to protect people like her friends Mike Thalassitis and Sophie Gradon from fast fame
New network: Malin Andersson was on Love Island
Natasha Pszenicki
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Malin Andersson doesn’t follow any mothers on Instagram. She unfollowed them all on Mothers’ Day last month — the same day her daughter, Consy, would have turned 14 weeks old. “I didn’t want any triggers, it’s too raw,” says the former Love Island star, showing me a video clip of her little girl lying in an incubator with a nametag round her wrist. Born on December 23 almost two months premature, Consy — who weighed just 4lb 8oz — was too small to be operated on. She died four weeks later.

For Andersson, 26, it was the final, unforgiving blow in a series of losses. Her father, Rune, died of cancer before she was one, and in 2017 — a year after she left the Love Island villa — her mother, also called Consy, passed away after battling cancer for a third time. Andersson became pregnant three months later. Now she’s launched a mental health app in her child’s memory.

Andersson spent 23 hours a day by Consy’s side, and after her death, she didn’t get out of bed for three weeks. “I lost track of myself a bit,” she says, three months on. “Anger took over. I was like: ‘How is this happening to me? Why me?’ I didn’t think it would happen to me again. This isn’t how life is meant to be.”

ITV bosses sent her flowers, which was “a lovely gesture” but “I should’ve had a phone call like, ‘Hey, are you OK?’” says Andersson, firmly. “Fair enough it’s not their responsibility that my mum or my daughter died, but it happened in the public eye — and that is a result of [being on Love Island].”

Then, last month, fellow Love Islander Mike Thalassitis was found dead. “They rang me after that,” she says pointedly. The producers also paid for a therapist — though that was “two months too late”. Thalassitis, nicknamed “Muggy Mike” during the 2017 series, was the second former contestant to apparently take their own life in as many years, after 2016 star Sophie Gradon died last June.

Andersson was good friends with Gradon and thinks both deaths should be seen as a warning that contestants need more support. She believes that should begin before the show starts. “They need to really do clear psych tests, thorough psych tests — not just ‘Hey, are going to kill yourself? Have you ever had suicidal thoughts?’ — because we’re not going to say yes, are we?” She is in talks with producers about helping future contestants — they are getting back to her about it.

The mental health history of contestants is important, says Andersson, as is stricter monitoring while they are in the villa and once they leave. “The minute you come out, you’re on your own,” she says. “You’re in Palma airport and you’re like, ‘Why is everyone staring at me? What do I do with my life now?’ Suddenly you’re judged; there’s trolling going on; you’ve got 300,000 followers and it’s overwhelming. You think, ‘OK everyone’s looking at me, I need to look good. I need lip filler, I need Botox, I need surgery.’ I’ve been there and done all that crap, and it just baffles me how I managed to get myself into that vicious cycle.”

Rise to fame: Malin Andersson on Love Island
ITV/Rex

She understands the reasons behind Thalassitis’s and Gradon’s deaths were complex, but insists the reality TV culture of fast fame is partly to blame. Gradon had asked for help from producers “but never got much back in return” and Thalassitis — who she remembers as a “sweet, gentle soul” — was trolled after the show.

“He was a completely different to his persona on TV. They can make you look like a really bad person. These trolls feed off something [the producers] have created.” The notion of fast fame. After Love Island, she admits she “lost herself” and then, when her mum died, fell into a “pitfall” of “drinking, partying and hanging out with the wrong crowd”.

Pregnancy gave her some clarity. “Being sober for just under a year, not getting Botox or filler, being really kind to your body, nourishing it and being healthy... you’re in your clearest mindset,” says Andersson. “When [Consy] was born, I looked at how innocent her little body was and how untouched she was in her face and just thought, ‘The world is shoving all these things at us and telling us we have to be a certain way when actually we don’t’.”

Consy’s death, although devastating, marked a turning point. “I was like, ‘Do I try and promote these s*** products I don’t believe in? Or do I do something real?’” says Andersson.

In memory of her daughter she has designed an app. Launching in a few months, Consy UK is designed to be a “support network” for anyone struggling with their mental health, whether it’s loss and bereavement or eating disorders — which Andersson experienced growing up.

She used to weigh herself after a glass of water while competing in pageants, and before Love Island she “starved” herself and tracked all her calories because “all I wanted to do was be skinny”.

Therapy has been her saviour and she wants her app to make this more accessible. It’s like Uber, Andersson explains: log on to see therapists in your area and book one through the app.

There’ll also be sections on body and soul, whether it’s finding personal trainers or yoga studios or self-help books. Michelle Obama’s new autobiography Becoming and Fearne Cotton’s book Quiet are among Andersson’s favourites, and she’ll be including a list of her top audio tracks for getting to sleep.

Beauty treatments feature, too, because “it’s about things that make you feel good”, she says.

“Looking after yourself looks after your mind. You know when you clean your bedroom it makes you feel better? It’s like that — when you get your nails done, you feel better, too” — though she won’t be including surgical treatments like fillers.

What does she say to young girls who ask her how to get into reality TV? “That being Instagram-famous is not what they think it is,” says Andersson, who’s planning to launch a junior version of the Consy app in schools for children as young as six. “Actually, it’s really sad: You’re posting images of your half-naked self and trying to advertise brands and be something, but you’re not being yourself. You lose yourself in it.” Is she glad she did Love Island? “Yes,” she says, because it’s given her an “amazing platform to speak on”, but she’s relieved she had her wake-up call at 26, not 40, when if she’d carried on with Botox and other treatments “I would have looked like a f****** freak”.

Crucially, she’s pleased that her mother, daughter and co-stars’ tragic deaths can be turned into something positive. “Everyone knows who Consy is now — it’s such a meaningful name,” says Andersson.

She and baby Consy’s father Tom Kemp have gone their separate ways since her death but remain friends. “He deals with the grief side of things very differently,” says Andersson. “He’s very closed, he doesn’t like to talk, he holds it all in — whereas I like to speak about it.”

The pair are still in contact and she’s close with Kemp’s family. This year she spent Mother’s Day with his aunt “who’s been like a mum” to her, and Kemp bought her flowers and a card on Consy’s behalf.

Andersson says she’s learned that anger will get her nowhere. “You can be envious or think: ‘It wasn’t my time: let me focus on myself now, and when the right time comes I will be pregnant and I’ll have that family that I want’. If I think like that it will happen.”

Follow @consyuk on Instagram. App coming soon.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in