It’s such a weird time with social media and the internet and everyone’s lives being public domain. I was reading through some comments that were particularly negative about your body. Having previous issues with your body image before, how did you take that?

I’ve been doing photoshoots with Billabong since I was 12. I’ve always been in photos and seeing myself in a bikini. When I was 16 I developed my eating disorder. I think when Instagram and social media became huge, it was hard not to look at myself and compare it to how other girls were looking and what they were posting. That was a really hard time in my life. I had to work really hard on myself to get through that.

Obviously, going into Love Island I knew there would be a lot of people judging my looks because I didn’t look like the other girls. I didn’t have hair extensions or a face full of makeup every day. I would get comments like, “Oh, she’s really masculine.” But there were also comments that have been positive. A lot of girls have been like, “It’s so nice to see a girl in there that’s sporty with a sporty physique and can do the things the boys are doing.”

For me, the positive comments, although rarer, outweighed the negative ones in the end. Even the really bad ones, they haven’t bothered me.

It's really easy to type negative comments. It's kind of funny, whenever you get positive reinforcement, it means 10 times more than the random person who thinks they're clever by typing offensive sentences behind the safety of their computer screen.

You look at these girls on Instagram or whatever and it’s easy to get a perception of how a girl should look. I have big shoulders because I surf and I wouldn’t be able to do what I love doing without bigger shoulders and stronger thighs.

I had such a negative view on my body for so long and it made me sick mentally. But on my Instagram, I was perceiving this best or ideal life and it wasn’t true at all. The whole time I was eating food and throwing it back up. I was really, really unhappy and that’s the thing I want to get across – that you can be living the most amazing life through Instagram but behind closed doors, people have no idea what you’re going through. No one knows what people are actually going through, you might write a comment on someone's profile and think nothing of it. Like, “Ha-Ha. Look what I just commented on a photo.”

It doesn’t matter how many followers you have, or what life you live. You never know what someone’s journey is. I think for me, I just wanted to share that we’re all in this together – whether you’re traveling the world or at school or work and not stoked on your life. A lot of people are going through the same thing.