After Mike Thalassitis’s death, producers look at how to help stars deal with overnight fame

ITV is reviewing the level of support it provides to Love Island contestants who struggle to adapt to their new-found fame, following the death of former contestant Mike Thalassitis.

The production team behind the hit programme are looking at how best to support individuals, with a particular focus on how to deal with their instant social media fame.

Thalassitis’s death, which followed the suicides last year of the Love Island contestant Sophie Gradon and her boyfriend, prompted the mental health minister to call on ITV and the show’s production company to ensure it was supporting participants after they left the programme.

“When someone suddenly goes into the public eye, they then become this personality and they have to continue to promote themselves using social media, the normal broadcast channels and, of course, print media,” the health minister, Jackie Doyle-Price, told BBC 5 Live.

“All of a sudden, they’re living their life in the public eye. And what we’re finding with social media is, people will troll them and attack them, just because they can.”

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, told a summit in London on Monday that reality TV shows had a duty of care for contestants when they became famous.

In an article for the Guardian, the former Love Island contestant Jonny Mitchell wrote that while the programme rook care of contestants while on the show, they were “left to their own devices to deal with [their baptism of fire] when the sun sets on the season”.

“The young people going into that environment are shot to fame literally overnight, then they are cut loose to handle all alone what’s waiting for them,” he wrote. “There needs to be a compulsory aftercare scheme in place for people who are now suffering just so they could make a good TV show.”

ITV insists it provides contestants with support before and after the programme, including giving contact numbers for senior members of the production staff and directing contestants on how to find agents to assist with their post-show careers.

Love Island has become a cultural phenomenon and a major commercial success for ITV in recent years, luring in younger viewers, who are increasingly hard for traditional TV channels to reach. However, it has faced sustained criticism from former contestants on the level of support it provides.

Several TV producers said that Love Island had a reputation within the industry for having an unusually rigorous screening process compared with some reality TV rivals. Production staff laid out the risks and pitfalls of taking part in the programme and weeded out many potential candidates for mental health reasons.

But they said little could prepare a twenty-something contestant for the mental strain of leaving a sealed-off environment after several months to discover they were suddenly a household name with millions of followers on Instagram and a public reputation partly constructed by the show’s editors.

“These people are under the microscope that nobody since the early series of Big Brother really has been,” said Willard Foxton, a development producer at an independent production company, who has seen how other reality TV shows are made.

“I don’t know if you can be prepared for the world of instant fame. Nobody prepares them for that moment when they’re working out of a corner shop three months after the show finishes and a photographer snaps them and someone sends them the headline: ‘Love Island hunk out of shape eating Double Deckers.’”

An ITV spokesperson said: “Care for our Islanders is a process the show takes very seriously and is a continuous process for all those taking part in the show. We ensure that all of our contributors are able to access psychological support before, during and after appearing on the show.

“The programme will always provide ongoing support when needed and where appropriate. We also discuss at length with all of our Islanders, before and after the show, how their lives might change and they have access to support and advice to help with this.”

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.



