Love Island’s Olivia Hawkins hits out after receiving ‘a lot of hate’ since leaving the villa

Love Island’s Olivia Hawkins has hit out at trolls after receiving ‘a lot of hate’ since coming out of the South African villa and gave her opinion on the social media ban.

The influencer, 27, revealed she had received plenty of ‘nasty comments’ since exiting the ITV show as she criticised trolls for their unkind remarks.

For the first time in Love Island history, ITV2 banned Islanders’ social media activity during the show, after their loved ones have previously taken over their accounts.

The big change was decided by producers following years of friends and family struggling to cope with the levels of trolling received as they managed their loved ones social media accounts from home.

This year, the cast members’ pages remained ‘dormant’ during their time in the villa, and Olivia has given her candid thoughts on whether or not it was a positive rule change.

The ring girl admitted it was very ‘conflicting’ as she said she ‘wouldn’t have wanted’ her family to see the hate she received, but now has to deal with it alone instead.

Speaking on Capital XTRA Breakfast on Wednesday, she said: ‘It is hard because obviously I have had quite a lot of hate when I came out so I wouldn’t have wanted my family to have seen that.

‘But then again, when I switch my phone on, I had to see it all by myself.

‘Yeah, so it’s conflicting, but I get it completely because it’s my choice to go on the show. It’s not my family’s, so I wouldn’t want them to deal with all that hate.

‘Some of the comments have been really nasty. I think people feel like we’re like characters on TV. But we are real people.’

In past series, Islanders’ teams used their accounts to encourage viewers to vote for them and build up their following – but this has led to them receiving abuse from trolls and getting into spats with other contestants’ family and friends.

The social media ban has also had a massive impact on the Islander’s outreach as only three of the six finalists had over 200k followers as the show came to an end.

In previous years, stars have garnered hundreds of thousands of fans on their respective platforms, with the likes of Molly-Mae Hague and Olivia Attwood now boasting millions.

Elsewhere on Wednesday’s radio show, Olivia opened up on her relationship with fellow islander Zara Lackenby-Brown – with whom plenty of drama was shared.

During the series, Zara, 25, got off on the wrong foot with the ring girl after they both had their eyes on Tom Clare and came to blows several times.

But putting the drama to bed, Olivia insisted it had all been ‘squashed’.

She said: ‘Any drama from my side has been left in the villa. It’s been squashed.

‘I saw Zara last night, had a really long conversation, we’re good. Last night we just talked about everything, we’re honestly good, I think she’s a great girl.

It comes after Sanam Harrinanan and Kai Fagan were crowned winners of the winter Love Island 2023 on Monday night – beating original couple Ron Hall and Lana Jenkins to the £50k cash prize.

After eight weeks of drama, viewers picked the social worker and PE teacher – who fell for one another during Casa Amor – as their champions.

Despite his victory, Kai and Olivia were originally coupled up together on the series before Casa Amor, where they both ditched each other for new partners.

Olivia maintained that Kai had only chosen to couple up with Sanam to stay safe and became angered when he refused to apologise to her for recoupling.

But speaking out after his triumph, Olivia claimed she was ‘so happy’ for her former fling.

Speaking on the breakfast show, she said: ‘I am honestly so happy for them. I’ve seen many comments saying “Olivia must be really angry”.

‘Honestly I’m so happy for them. I’m happy for any of the top four – I thought any of them deserved it, but they’re so much better suited than me and him ever were.’

Taking to Twitter, plenty of fans had joked that Olivia must be at home ‘fuming’ after her ex Kai won the show.

One said: ‘Olivia must be fuming and kicking herself. I’m happy Kai and Sanam won!’

Another echoed: ‘I know Olivia is somewhere bashing her head in’.

A third added: ‘the way olivia is prob fuming that kai won lmfao’.

A fourth person pointed out: ‘olivia was always chatting s*** saying she “finally understood why her and Kai were always in the bottom” now now she’s gonna watch him win and realise it was always her.’

A fifth agreed, writing: ‘olivia seeing kai win love island after gaslighting herself into thinking he was the problem #loveisland’.

While a sixth tweeted: ‘I know Olivia is fuming at home watching Kai be so loved after the way she tried to make him a villain in her story’.

And a seventh said: ‘And both Kai and Ron ended up top two, Olivia must be livid right now’.

Olivia took to her Instagram Stories to share a picture of Kai and Sanam after their win, but took the high road, writing: ‘Happy for them.’

Kai and Sanam’s win marked the first time a Casa Amor bombshell has entered the show and gone on to take the win in the show’s eight-year history.

The couple were speechless when host Maya Jama announced the results during the live final in South Africa.

Before their win, Sanam accidentally revealed she is in love with Kai, while he told viewers to ‘watch this space’ about making the beauty his girlfriend in the outside world.

Tom Clare, 23, and Samie Elishi, 22, placed third in the competition, while airport security officer Shaq Muhammad, 24, and Tanya Manhenga, 22 were the first out.

After their win, Sanam told Maya, 28,: ‘I can’t believe it’, while Kai was lost for words.

She said of their romance: ‘For me, it was always Kai, like I always said he was my number one. Obviously, he is a very attractive guy but I fell in love with everything. Everything about him, I just loved it. I really didn’t think I was gonna be here. I’m going to cry.’