As a former drama student, Love Island’s Molly Marsh is triggering my fight or flight

I thought I was free of this Lea Michele hell

1 year ago | UPDATED 2 weeks ago

To put it frankly, this season of Love Island is slapping my tits. It’s giving me what I need. It’s keeping me fed. Nary a week in and we’re getting dosed up on drama, but there’s one corner of said drama that rings all too familiarly. Since she bounded into the villa like she was on the Drury Lane stage taking her opening night bow, I have aired Molly Marsh with caution. This is a girl I know, to quote the wordsmith of a generation Taylor Swift, all too well. This girl has scared the living shite out of me at audition rooms. This girl has belted On My Own from Les Mis at me unprompted in the bathroom of a house party. This girl has betrayed me as much as she has befriended me, and I thought I’d left it all behind. I thought I was safe. Here is how drama girly Molly Marsh has triggered me beyond belief in Love Island 2023.

The drama trauma

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Before I became the most serious journalist of a generation, I suppose I wanted to be an actor. I spent every week from the age of 12 to 21 doing musical theatre, choir, dance and serious acting. By the time I got to uni, I was writing and I was directing. Every waking moment of my life had been filled with drama girlies – for better or for worse. Drama girlies are the best and the worst friends you can ever hope for. Confident, loving and usually with an endearing penchant for supporting the LGBTQs of which in the arts there tends to be many. Being in their inner circle makes you feel unstoppable. Having them against you feels like the world is ending. If it all sounds a bit like the plot of Mean Girls, you aren’t far off.

Obviously, since you’re reading this now you’ll know full well that I am no longer a drama girly. I am a rent a gob pop culture journo girly. I have left the realm of the drama girlies behind, for many reasons. One, there’s little money in it. Two, I’m way better at doing this (don’t listen to my detractors). Three, I had to escape the clutches of the rich girls a la Molly Marsh who dominate every audition room and can fund their way to success thanks to their background. It is a lot.

The Lea Michele as Rachel Berry of the villa

I’m terrified

When I first clocked Molly Marsh and her Love Island promo picture, the drama girl jumped right out and belted Defying Gravity in my face. I thought, “this girl has no inside voice.” I was right. We are looking at a Lea Michelian, Rachel Berryan monster. Although I do think Molly Marsh can read. The villa Berrys are the centre of their own world, and I do think that just comes with the nature of the theatre school beast. I think of Lea Michele cry-singing her way through a rendition of Rihanna’s Take a Bow and all I can see when I look at Molly Marsh is her stepping out around the firepit to do the same thing once the inevitable drama blows up with her and Mitch. I don’t know who’d be singing back up, though – considering not one girl in the villa right now seems to have any time for her.

I take you to TikTok for a prime example

The most accurate example of the exact kind of drama girl Molly Marsh is on Love Island can best be summed up by one of my favourite TikTok accounts: The criminally underrated Liv Pickford. Liv Pickford gets it so right because she’s been that drama girly fighting for her life in the trenches shoulder to shoulder with me.

@livgpickfordx

Why is this low key me though🤪 #pov #dance #relatable #ukcomedy #fyp #musicaltheatre

♬ original sound – Liv Pickford

Look me in the metaphorical eye right now and tell me that isn’t Molly Marsh walking back into her old theatre company back up north in three months time. You simply can’t. There are loads of examples in the same vibe as this that Liv gets spot on, and it is Molly Marsh energy to a tee.

Although I’m triggered, Molly Marsh must stay

I’m triggered, yes. My fight or flight is shaking. But this is what we need. The drama girly can cause chaos like no other – she is a machiavellian telly force without even necessarily intending to be so. Drama girls have this chaos in their blood. In their DNA. The nature of the theatre beast is cutthroat and Molly Marsh will slay it, like she’ll slay the villa with the carnage she is going to give us for two months. I’m triggered, but best believe I am watching.

Love Island 2023 is on ITV2 and ITVX. For all the latest Love Island news and gossip and for the best memes and quizzes, like The Holy Church of Love Island on Facebook.