Laura Whitmore says she ‘wasn’t allowed’ to ask Love Islanders if they were okay

Laura Whitmore, who announced she would be stepping down as host of Love Island last month, has said that she wanted to step in and ask the Islanders if they were okay but that she wasn’t permitted to do so by ITV.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Laura Whitmore said that she wasn’t allowed to check up on any of the Love Island contestants in the villa’s mental health and wasn’t allowed to say whether she thought any Islander’s behaviour was unacceptable or not. The season was filled with accusations of bullying, especially from male Islanders towards. Laura said: “I hate having anything I’m not allowed to say. I couldn’t ask Love Islanders if they were okay.

“It is hard. Your face is the front of the show but I am one tiny person and have no producing role so I couldn’t say if I didn’t think something was OK.  If your child is watching, maybe you should watch it with them and have a conversation. A friend watched with her daughter and told her that it is not OK to say certain things.

“I question things a lot, even if I don’t do it publicly, people would rather I didn’t. It’s difficult doing that when you work on the show.”

Whitmore with 2022 Love Island winners Davide and Ekin-Su

Laura goes on to say though that she did love her time as the host of Love Island and was forever grateful to her predecessor Caroline Flack for all the support she got. ‘The first year I did the show, I was surviving the trauma of losing someone and keeping it together and doing a live show. That first series was one of the toughest things, a lot of it was survival.”

Laura Whitmore had previously said the following to The Evening Standard when discussing her time as Love Island host and presenter: “Love Island is a show that I love to watch, and I always want to work on shows that I enjoy. But there’s nothing more that I can do with it. There are parameters.

“When you work on the show, you can’t really talk about certain things. But I’m really proud of what I did, and proud to leave on what I think has been a brilliant series, with great winners.”

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