FAME GAME
Crowds followed me around the shops when I won the show – I’d love that now I’m not famous! says Love Island winner
The mum revealed her tough mental health battle following the show
LOVE Island legend Cara de la Hoyde has described the crazy fan mania when she won the show - and her life eight years on.
The mum triumphed in series 2 with co-star Nathan Massey and has revealed their shock when they discovered they were suddenly super famous.
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Love Island had been rebooted just one year earlier in 2015, after ten years away.
But Cara, 33, left the Majorca villa with a million social media followers and was swamped by fans when she landed back in the UK with Nathan, after being on TV every day for six weeks.
The honest star told fellow Love Island alum Shaughna Phillips: "Series 2 was very different.
"None of us thought we would be working eight years after.
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"We were all sitting around the fire pit, thinking we’ll do a couple of PAs (personal appearances), make some money for our savings, and then we’ll all be back to work.
"And then you get your phone back and it’s mental, you turn your phone on and it's like it’s going to break down. It gets so hot, there’s so much going on."
She continued: "When we flew back, they held the finalists in a hotel so you stayed there to do press and this and the other.
"When we landed they were like, 'you and Nathan are going on (TV show) Lorraine the next day.
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"So we were like, we need to go and buys some clothes! We’ve got no clothes!"
Cara explained Nathan's dad joined them for a shopping spree in London and arrived before them to hoards of people waiting to see the winning couple.
She said: "We thought, let's go to Reiss. His dad was like, listen, it’s mental. It is f*****g mental, do not go.
"We got there and out of this taxi and it was mad, I’ve never seen nothing like it.
"They had to stop people coming into Reiss! I was like, this ain’t normal, what is this?"
And Cara joked: "Now, I would love that. I would love that now.
She joked: "Love Island theme tune as your ring tone!"
Cara and Nathan split in 2017 for seven months, after she found out she was pregnant.
She opened up on the reasons behind the split, and said: "We come out, thought we had a bright idea, 'lets move in together, that’s clever.'
"I went into a really bad depression cycle, like, what is my life?
"Nathan had never been with anyone who had that, he was going on (personal appearances) and obviously going out, getting drunk, he’d be out for days on end, I’d be in this little flat on my own, in this depression spiral, wouldn’t want to get out of bed.
"We couldn’t stand each other, but at the time we had management who were like, 'you need to stay together, and you need to get work', blah blah blah, and we thought, that’s what we need to do.
"Then I found out I was pregnant."
Cara admitted Nathan was terrified to have a baby when they were barely speaking, but she saw it as a blessing after the tragic and recent loss of her cousin.
"I said, listen, I’m not a spiritual person, I’ve just lost a cousin, who was a boy, we won’t be together, we’ll co-parent it will be fine."
The couple reunited a few weeks before Cara was due to give birth and welcomed son Freddie-George in Decemeber 2017, followed by daughter Delilah in 2020.
Cara spoke to Shaughna ahead of the first Love Island All Stars series which kicks off next week.
She said she'd seen the line-up and noticed they hadn't picked anyone from her series.
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Cara laughed and said: "We were before it got all PC (politically correct).
"We was the s******g in the bedroom, in the smoking area, throwing drinks at each other!"
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