Web hate drove me to brink of breakdown

Love Island star Coco’s warning to current contestants as she reveals scale of online abuse

- David Stephenson

FORMER Love Island star Coco Lodge has revealed the extent of the horrific online abuse she suffered when she was dumped out of the villa last summer.

As a new set of contestants take part in Winter Love Island, Coco warned them not to set their expectations too high for life after the show.

The abuse she suffered was so appalling she almost had a breakdown in a London shopping centre, she revealed.

“Nothing could prepare you for the level of online trolling I had. Nothing,” she said. “There were so many horrible attacks just focused on my appearance.”

Now hosted by Maya Jama and with a villa in South Africa, the show is set to run until spring.

But Coco said contestants should be careful what they wished for.

The 27-year-old, from Guildford, Surrey, said she was not only the target of thousands of abusive messages online, but also random passengers on public transport.

She was even shown abusive tweets by Love Island fans rushing up to her while she shopped.

Coco went into the show at the last-minute as a so-called “bombshell”.

It was during a part of the series called Casa Amor, in which contestants are tested to see if they would be unfaithful.

Asked if ITV2, which broadcasts the show, had deliberately cast her as a femme fatale, she replied: “Yes, I guess.

“But I would say I’m probably like the complete opposite of that.”