Faye Winter breaks down in tears as she reveals how vicious trolls destroyed her life after THAT Love Island rant
HER expletive-laden outburst on Love Island sparked a record 25,000 Ofcom complaints and a barrage of online hate and death threats.
Now Faye Winter has bravely spoken out about the devastating toll the public backlash took on her mental health following her stint on the ITV2 dating show in 2021.
Fighting back tears, the 28-year-old former estate agent from Exeter, Devon, admits she ended up in a “dark place”.
At times, Faye’s social anxiety was so high that her therapist had to accompany her to the supermarket.
Speaking exclusively to Fabulous for Shamed, a new YouTube series exploring the effects of trolling on six famous women, she says: “At one point, when I came out of Love Island, I thought I was the worst person in the world.
“Not many people get to see their flaws played out in front of people.
“Did it impact my mental health? Yes. Was I in a really dark place? Yes. Do I think I deserved the hate? No. But I didn’t want to come out and talk about that side of it . . . I didn’t want to sound like a cop out.
“What I’ve done, I’ve done and I have to take full responsibility for that. I have to take full credit and say, ‘I messed up and I’m sorry’.
“And I’ve said that for more than two years.”
In the infamous clip, Faye is seen confronting love interest Teddy Soares over footage taken during his time in Casa Amor — the rival villa where islanders are tempted by a batch of new singletons called Bombshells.
The clip was shown without its full context, leading Faye to believe Teddy had cheated.
Most of the complaints related to Faye’s fiery behaviour, with viewers claiming producers should have stepped in to defuse the situation.
Faye says the online trolling she was subjected to in the aftermath was “horrendous”.
Scrolling through her blocked phrases on Instagram, Faye reveals she’s had to screen out slurs including “s**g”, “psycho”, “t**t”, “hate her” and “mentally ill”.
She’s also been forced to block vile demands including “die” and “kill yourself”.
Welling up, Faye explains: “People might think, ‘She’s only crying about it now because she wants to deflect from it’. But I haven’t. I’ve made sure that I’ve never deflected from it. I’ve always said, ‘That was me and I’m sorry’.
“People make mistakes. I’m not going to blame it on anything other than I reacted to a situation wrongly. And that’s alI can say.
Explosive argument
“There were a hundred other different ways that I could have reacted in that situation. I chose not to.”
Despite their explosive argument, in which Faye is reported to have said the F-word 57 times, she and Teddy finished third on the show and continued dating until February 2023.
Announcing their split on Instagram, she thanked fans for “supporting our relationship and sharing the journey with us”.
She says: “I apologised to him numerous times and I spent 18 months of my life trying to make it up to him.”
She confirms they no longer speak.
Although Faye thinks trolling is “disgraceful”, she admits she agreed with some of the comments, many of which also criticised her appearance.
She says: “I wasn’t in a good place mentally. I started to believe [the comments] and that’s difficult.
“It’s one thing getting trolled and thinking, ‘OK, you think that, but I see myself differently’. When you start to question it yourself, that’s when it’s really difficult.”
Faye, who admitted having two breast enlargements, Botox and fillers before appearing on the dating show, received negative jibes about her inflated lips.
Trolls branded her a “duck”, “fake”, “minging”, “disgusting” and cruelly said she looked “like a man”.
Faye admits she “got this kind of frenzy” about plumping her pout and ignored her parents when they begged her to stop.
She says: “I just wanted them bigger.”
But after leaving the villa, she admits she was shocked by her appearance.
She adds: “I came out and I saw my face [in clips from the show] and I thought, ‘I don’t recognise you any more’. That was really sad.
“My lips were a massive talking point on the show and I got a lot of trolling for that.
“But I could understand why — and that was really difficult. I agreed with people.”
Faye admits she “really struggled” for 18 months after Love Island, saying: “It was bad. Especially when I lived away from my friends and family [in London]. I felt so alone. That was a dangerous time for me.”
The star, who is 5ft 5in, lost weight due to the stress, slimming to an unhealthy 7st, and eventually reached out for professional help.
“I couldn’t eat,” she says.
“I wasn’t doing it because I thought I was fat. I was really stressed.
“I never thought I was one of those people. I didn’t even know what anxiety was.”
At her lowest, Faye would ask her therapist to accompany her to the shops.
‘Didn’t recognise myself’
Through tears, she says: “That was hard. That was difficult.
“I felt like I was in a fish bowl and because of the death threats and abuse, I was worried about my safety. I didn’t have anyone to call if something did happen.
“I couldn’t even go into my supermarket on my own. My therapist had to come with me.
“She really helped me. She taught me the 5-4-3-2-1 rule to control my breathing and help me focus on what I was going to the shops for.
“This is focusing on five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste
“I’d also go into a shop with her but go up the aisle on my own and ask her to wait outside so I knew she was there for support.”
Faye moved back to Devon from the capital last March and now lives with her 19-month-old golden retriever, Bonnie.
She has her lip fillers dissolved and now makes a conscious effort to ignore her Instagram DMs.
Reflecting on that difficult period, she says: “I lost my way. I lost Devon, I lost my friends. I wasn’t in the job that I loved any more.
“I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror. I didn’t recognise what was inside. And that was tough.”
Faye, who signed up for Love Island after a producer contacted her on Instagram, says she “hasn’t got a massive ego” and didn’t go on the show hoping to land “fashion deals”.
She says: “I was put on that show because I’m a big personality, but when I came out, my personality shrunk.”
She recalls the drive back home to Devon as the turning point for her mental health, saying: “It was just like the biggest weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
“At that moment I just thought, ‘OK, I can do this. I’m going home’.”
But Faye insists she has no regrets.
She says: “This is all personal development. I didn’t need any new friends. I didn’t need a new place to live. I didn’t need a new relationship.
“I just needed to get back to me, but get back to me as a person that had grown. And that’s what I’ve done.”
Focusing on the future, Faye wants to continue supporting animal charities, including Guide Dogs UK, and calling for tougher regulations in the aesthetics industry.
She is no longer in therapy.
She adds: “Now, when I look back at comments that trolls have sent me in the past, I know I’m a good person with a good heart.
“You don’t have to agree with things I’ve done. I don’t agree with some of the things I’ve done.
“But I’ve learned from them.”