Her Discussions by Dr Faye - Love Islander Turned Activist: Why I Got An Abortion

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

Sharon Gaffka opens up about what it was really like growing up mixed-race in the UK, entering beauty pageants despite the criticism, getting spiked on a night out, and why she’s now fighting to stop it from happening to other women.She also shares her experience with abortion and the backlash she faced after making that decision about her own body.Sharon Gaffka, Her Discussions Podcast.FIND US ON SOCIALS@sharongaffka - Instagram @sharonngaffka - TikTok@drfayebate - Instagram & TikTok@herdiscussionspod - Instagram & TikTok

You always think your parents are superheroes, especially your mum. Yeah. And I did not like my mum at that period in time. And I think it's not until you think you're going to lose them. Sharon Gaffka is an award-winning activist and one of the most recognisable advocates against violence towards women. If I decided not to have an abortion, I would be blamed for being a single mum. And if I had an abortion, I'm going to be blamed. I read a statistic. I had one in three women.

will get an abortion in their lifetime. In this episode, we'll talk about her experiences of being physically violated and advocating for truth and justice. I had some horrific messages. I had someone send me a bit because I had an abortion. Oh my God. Before we get into the conversation with Sharon, if you could do us a huge, huge favour and click the subscribe button just down there,

or if you're listening, leave a five-star review. It means that we can come back for a season two with incredible guests, helping you live a happier, healthier life. Thank you very much. Sharon, what was life like before Love Island politics advocating for women? Take us back to what was life like growing up? Life, do you know what? I was, I had a very privileged upbringing. Like there's no way of me talking about my upbringing without saying that because, you know, I had, I had a middle class upbringing. I went to a nice school in a nice area. My parents were happily married. It was me and my younger brother. I guess inside that everyone has things that they don't necessarily like. For me, I remember

experiencing a lot of racism growing up. I think that I mixed race. So my mom's Asia, my dad's Polish, British. But I was probably one of very few ethnic minority people in my primary school. So I only now know it is racist comments because I'm older. But at the time, I just thought maybe people didn't like me for whatever reason. I wasn't necessarily the most popular person. I had friends, but I didn't feel like I had the closest friends. Or I felt like, you know, if there's a third, there's always that one person that's slightly on the outside. That was probably me.

But it would probably be no surprise people. I was very competitive, played a lot of sport. I played badminton. I played football. I did like track, netball. I did dance, even though I can't dance. I don't know why I decided to do that. I, believe it or not, was a big rebel in school, was always being told off.

I really rebelled against being told what to do, which probably isn't surprising to people, but I hated school. I didn't feel like exams suited me. I didn't feel like I was getting the support I needed. And now people have conversations to be all the time about ADHD. amongst other things that probably weren't spoken about as much for young women when I was in school. And I was always just deemed as a naughty child and actually I just wanted to be listened to. And then at 14, my mum was diagnosed about cancer.

So, yeah, very up and down childhood, I think. I also saw that you engaged in what some make is quite a controversial hobby when you were a child. Pagents, could you tell me a little bit about them and how they've made you the person you are today? Yeah, do you know what, actually? I can't believe if I completely glazed over that part of my life, consider it was a big part of my life.

I don't really know how it came about. I think I did perform in a musical in my local theatre, so like Oxford, I can't remember the theatre's called. When I was a child, I was scouted in infant school. So I think that some part of me when I was like 12 wanted to consider some kind of stage career or career in front of the camera,

which is ironic how things come around. So I think I was looking for different opportunities. Beauty pageants came up. My dad, very conservative. It was like, no, never. So I kind of let it slide, had to turn down the place that I was scouted for. And then it came back around

when I was probably, oh my God, how old was I in 2013, 2012? I don't know. But around about then, it came back around. And my dad said to me, I will drive you and take you there because it was at the other end of the country, but I will not fund it. So I had to do like my paper round. I was doing a bake sale in secondary school to get the entry fee. I think it was £300 to enter, which is a lot of money for 13, 14, 14 year old girl.

A lot of people did take the mick out of me for it. you know, putting your head above the parapet and being different always attracts attention, sometimes not good. So I know that there were lots of people in my school that were talking about me behind my back because of it. They thought that I was better than everyone or I thought that I was prettier than I was or whatever. I think for me, it probably goes back to always being the outside friend because I'd already had all these hobbies. What else could I do to potentially make new friends or gain a little bit more confidence or do something different? And I was always a bit of a person I would try anything at least once. So I went, I enjoyed it, I loved it,

I met so many people. It was a weird time as well because at that moment in time, majority of the people that entered were actually from like the Merseyside area. So it was more people in the northwest, northeast, that were entering rather than down south. So I probably was the only southern girl for a long period of time. But I made a lot of friends. And even though I didn't place, I didn't do particularly well. And in comparison to the girls that won those competitions they were like they were miles ahead but I wouldn't be the person I am now without doing it and I know that it's a controversial hobby because toddlers and tiaras I do think it was probably be a bit inappropriate for me to be on stage in a swimsuit at that age so if I had a daughter I probably

wouldn't allow her to do a pageant with a swimsuit until she was 18 if she wanted to do that um but all of my friends now all of my best friends I met through doing pageants my ability to sit in front of you and talk, my ability to sit in my podcast, myself, and interview. All of that has come from pageants. So people might deem it controversial because of the stage aspect. There are so many other aspects behind the scenes before getting to the stage that have contributed to the final product of, as me as an almost 30 year old woman. I was fundraising for McMillan. You know, when people were potentially underage drinking, I was at charity events. I was volunteering. I was Ab-sailing down the local hospital.

So when it came to doing university applications, I had things to write about coming out of my ears that I actually had a meltdown because I didn't know what's included and whatnot to, which I think is like an amazing position to be in at 16, 17. So I think without people actually sitting there speaking to people or actually experiencing and watching the growth for themselves, I don't think that their opinion holds merit.

necessarily. I think it's interesting because like for young boys growing up, you have so many options for team activities and team sports. For young women, I mean, I don't know about you, but we, I didn't have many like team activities available to me as a girl and I think that it seems like on the surface, yes, people can perceive it as superficial and focused on how people look, But at its core, it's an excuse to get people together and have a sense of community. I think so. I mean, I played football growing up and I didn't feel like football was taken seriously for girls at that age. Yeah.

It was a bit more of a laugh and like the teams weren't. We weren't even given like proper kits or proper access to like football pitches behind the men. So it definitely felt like that to me. For as far as I can remember, any quality that I liked about myself or anything that I thought I was good at, I was just told to keep it in a tiny little neat box and not be loud and proud about it. My whole life, that was the only place that it was deemed acceptable to be loud and proud of who I am, what I achieved, and what I want to go on and do. And I still see that. We have come a little bit of a way since I was in my early days.

But when I judge a teen pageant, I'm not sitting in a room having 40, 50 young teenagers walk through the door and sit in the seat in front of me and say, you know, they want world peace. I remember a girl sitting in front of me saying she wants to be a neurosurgeon. And she was like, you know, both my parents are doctors. I've seen how much to help people. This is what I want to do growing up. I'm not sitting in front of toddlers and tiara type teenagers. Yeah.

And I think that that's something that we should be more open about in. acknowledging about that, like you said, it's community, but it's creating, it's filling a gap in society and filling a gap in women. Yeah. And I also think, of course, anything that involves makeup or hair is always going to be looked down on. Yeah. Obviously, you see girls who are incredible at makeup and hair and it's a bloody scale. But of course, because it's more associated with being a woman, of course it's minimised, you know? Yeah. And I think it's, it's shame as well because sometimes it's minimized by other women. And I understand it. The original origin, of like Miss Universe, for example,

was about reading your measurements out on a stage because a company wanted to sell swimsuits. So, of course, the traditional origins of beauty pageants are not necessarily feminist, but are the origins of anything that women have originally feminist? Probably not. I think it's about whether it's evolved with time and I would say that it has.

Yeah. Would you feel comfortable talking a little bit about your mum? Yeah. Yeah. Would about her, having cancer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

So that came about when you were 14. I think so, yeah. And how was that for you? Whilst you're in school? So my grandfather had already had skin cancer when I was in primary school and he passed away from it. And so I already knew about cancer

from a young age. I knew what the treatments were going to be like and I knew how gruelling it was going to be. So it was never a big shock to me in that sense. I think you always think your parents are super heroes. Yeah. Oh. Only been here five minutes. No, it's fine.

Especially your mum. Yeah. And I remember I was out in town with my friends. My mum and dad were just going to the hospital. She had felt lumps in her abdomen. And they were like mushroomy type lumps. She had blood in her stall. And because my mum, her third language, I think,

is English. I was always a little bit of a translator. I spent my whole young years being the translator, the admin person for my mum. So she would talk to me about a lot of things that other parents may not talk to their children about. And I remember the GP telling her that she was probably constipated and just giving her sachets of five, like strong fibre to make her go to the toilet. And I remember her being in bed for days in agony before she got a diagnosis. But when she was diagnosed, I was in town with my friends doing whatever we were doing. My dad called me to come home and told me that my mum had been diagnosed. Now, I was probably quite, again, being a gobby teenager, was beneficial in that sense because my dad, rightly or wrongly, said, you know, the doctors,

they've been trained for a long period of time, they know what they're talking about, you should just listen to the doctors. And I was watching my mum in bed because my dad would be at work and I'd be Like, no, like something else is definitely wrong. So it was like kind of down to me to ring the GP and say, I'm not taking this or not so you need to refer her for a scan or I don't know what doctors do at this point. So eventually being a gobby teenager paid off and she was referred. I remember lots of rounds of chemotherapy. She had a stoma at one point and stoma was reversed.

But I was doing the weekly shop. as a as a as a as a it's not like to me it's not the big of a deal but I remember having to go to town with my mum and dad's money and get a taxi back with all the weekly shopping and stuff um but I think it was a big turning point in the relationship I had with my mum because because I was a gobby teenager we didn't get on yeah we did not I did not like my mum at that period in time and I think it's not until you think you're going to lose them that that changes yeah and my mom, it's my best friend. It worked out. Yeah. She's fine. She's been all clear for a long period of time. So we were very, very lucky.

But obviously when you heard about Deborah Balbabe talk about her symptoms and stuff, it's just crazy how people still don't take very obvious symptoms like that as seriously as they should, especially the GP that told my mum she was just, constipated. It's just such a sad state of affairs how many people have a story of not being taken seriously. Yeah. And like I wouldn't want to put that blame all on doctors. I definitely, I've experienced dismissive doctors. Like I'm not going to, how many people have, have the same story of having to really, really, really push to be taken seriously. And I think that when you're unwell, you don't have that energy to push and having actually someone,

who is able to advocate in your corner is so important, but not everyone, not every mum has a sharing, you know, to fight their corner. But I got, like, I literally got goosebumps when you were saying that you had to translate because I had a patient who did not, their first language was not English. And they were from a country that is being quite significantly demonised by certain political parties at the moment. And they were the most incredible family. This family was round their bedside, almost 24-7. They had made this patient flashcards that said in their language, I'm in pain.

Yeah. I'm, please, can I have some painkillers? I'm short of breath. I, just a stack of them so that she could communicate with staff when they went there. And one of the relatives was young. And I remember feeling like, this is a lot. lot for you to be communicating. We're asking quite serious questions to your loved one and you're having to communicate these answers. It's a lot to expect from someone who should just have

permission to be a relative at that point, not a translator. Yeah, because I think that, you know, obviously my mom was the person that had cancer. My mom was the person that had to physically go through chemotherapy and surgery. But it affects the whole family. And I was the eldest child. And I was the eldest child. So obviously my younger brother had a bit more of a, I wouldn't say sheltered upbringing, but he was slightly more protected than I was because culturally as well, it's always the daughter that does the unpaid labour stuff. Eldest daughter, girl. I'm so sorry for that trauma, maybe. So yeah, I have eldest daughter syndrome. So I think it was, and I remember my mom was going through surgery when I was doing my GCSE exams.

So obviously we were on study break, study leave, whatever it was called at the time. And I remember I would get a train, then a bus, every morning to be at the hospital, and I would revise for my GCSE exams at my mum's bedside. And my dad would finish work and pick me up from the hospital. So I was there practically every day. my mum, I remember exactly my mum would eat because my mum hated hospital food,

and obviously chemotherapy and punctual taste buds, and your sense of smell and things like that. So my mum would only eat cornish pasties from a certain place. She would only eat strawberries and extra hot Nando's chicken wings. Obviously, none of which is on an NHS hospital menu. Yeah. So I had to come to the hospital armed with any of these three things, otherwise my mum wouldn't eat. So, to be fair, in her defence, I thought she was being a bit traumatic until I tried it and was like, okay, fair enough.

Yeah, it was not great. But it did make me a little bit distrustful of the health service because I don't know if my mum was not given early intervention or help because she was a woman or because she was a woman of colour or because it was the system that they just, you know, they had so many targets they could or couldn't meet. That's a huge amount of responsibility to have at a young age. Fast forward a little bit. You get your GCSEs, you go to uni, and then is it 2020, you get spiked? Yeah, so I actually didn't go to university. Oh, okay. I decided to do an apprenticeship because I didn't want to be too far away from home.

So I joined the civil service at 18. Fab. Went from being small town girly to big Westminster girly at 18. 18, very scary. 2020, I was living in London with my big corporate girly job, my nice flat. Like, I had a partner at the time. We had cats. Like, I had everything the society tells you you're supposed to grow up and have.

Obviously, COVID hits. Lockdown sucks for everyone. I was working in the Department of Health at the time, so I felt like it particularly sucked. Gosh. You know, the first day that we had any kind of freedom, everyone was scrambling for places at restaurants, bars, wherever you could physically get into people were trying. And we somehow were very lucky to get a table in a restaurant so we could have belated birthdays forever. Extended period of time, any birthday that we'd missed.

I was excited. Everyone was excited. We were really happy to, I was happy to be. I was on time for the first time in my life for something. So that was a big shock. But, you know, everything about the day was completely normal. The food order was normal. The drinks were normal. I didn't over consume alcohol. I know what my limits are.

I turned around to my best friend at the time and I said, I feel extremely unwell. Yeah. Something doesn't feel right. Now, I do have a peanut allergy. So maybe she was like, has she eaten something? But what I'd eaten was nothing different to what I'd had before. So she was, everything was fine. She's also a medical professional

and she knows my medical history back to front so she would know Anyway we went upstairs to go to the bathroom We go into completely separate cubicles She'd obviously come out and was waiting for me But obviously busy bathroom You don't really want to be around people So she goes back to the table, absolutely fine

10 minutes later has passed and I'm still not back So she's gone upstairs to check The cubicle I've gone into everyone's left the bathroom but the cubicle I went into who was still locked. Okay. She knocks on the door, no response.

She gets the other girls from the table. They've come up. They're all banging on the door, no response. Yeah. I think my friend said they used a coin

to pick the lot and I was found unconscious wedged between the toilet and the door. I had my trousers down because I'd obviously tried to go to the bathroom.

My bodysuit was undone. I'd banged my head. That was sick. God. I think, you know, urine, of body extremities, whatever it's called, completely unconscious, was not responding to anything. Eyes roll into the back of my head, very shallow breath. So naturally they call 999.

Two male paramedics arrived to the restaurant. They'd managed to dress me. My friend did make a joke. She was like, it makes you feel better. It was very hard to get your jeans over your bum. So at least there's like a highlight there. And I was like, great, thank you. Wonderful. But they were like, we're trying to get a dress because obviously they're going have to take her outside and people were going to see. They were very dismissive, these paramedics. They basically took one look at me and said, she's young, therefore she's drunk, needs to go home and sleep it off. And it wasn't until my friend who works in a medical field said, I know her medical history. I know her, like everything about her. I know what her alcohol is and what she

looks like when she's had a lot to drink. This is not it. Yeah. I refuse to take her home. She has to go to the hospital. I don't know how long I've been unconscious for at this point. By the time I'm at the hospital still don't know how long I've been unconscious for. And when I come around, a junior doctor is trying to fit, is it a cannular? Like another drip to me. Yeah. In this arm. Now, this arm has got quite prominent veins. This is my blood donation arm. Yeah. Could not get anything out of me. So my veins, for whatever reason, not, were no longer visible. When I look at the ceiling, on this side, I've got two more drips in this arm and I've got a cannula in my hand as well

so they were obviously either testing or giving me a lot of stuff to this day don't know what you tested me for don't know what you gave me I don't know how long I was in there for I don't know who saw me I don't know who I saw I only know the name of the hospital and that is it

and I only remember being discharged and not being able to remember the hospital because people medical staff were constantly asking me and coming out to the reception area because I was by myself because of COVID and seeing one of my friends being absolutely fuming that no one had told her what happened to me and she had my coat in my bag because I had no personal belongings and no one there with me.

God. So yeah, to this day, apart from between saying I felt unwell and waking up in hospital, I have no memory. There is nothing there. That must be very scary. Yeah, it was definitely really scary.

I think it didn't, it took me a while to deep what had happened and to understand what had happened. Because I was very, I don't know if high is the right word, but I was just quite clearly not very there for a long period of time. And one of my friends said, I refuse to let you stay the night on your own. Like I'm coming to date. I'll stay in your spare room and we'll have a conversation in the morning. I was still very out of it in the morning. Yeah. Still very unwell.

Yeah. And I was probably unwell and anxious for like the rest of the week. Yeah. until I had to go back into office for work. Like they would not let me work from home because of the job I had at the moment in time. So I had to go back into the office. I probably wouldn't have left the flat at all. It just would have been nice to have had at least on your discharge letter,

just like a bit more detail of what? I don't have a discharge letter. Oh my God. My GP was never sent anything. Really? Yeah. So like nobody knows. The only person that probably knew was who was on shift at the time at the hospital.

Yeah. And I did ring up the hospital and said, I think I was spiked. What did you test me for? What happened to me? I was actually the Department of Health in the office when I had made this phone call. I remember standing in the stairwell sobbing saying, I've been spiked and you're telling me that you don't know what happens to me. And what you tested me for and what you did with me when I was unconscious in your hospital. And they were just like, well, yeah.

They were like, if you thought you'd been spiked, you should have phone. the police. And that's literally what she said. If you thought you'd been about, you should have phoned the police. And I said, well, I was unconscious and I couldn't even tell you my name. How am I supposed to tell you I want a police officer? Yeah. That's, yeah, I didn't even think about the fact you were working for the Department of Health at that time. It's really interesting you did an apprenticeship because I've got a friend, my best friend from home, she did an apprenticeship instead of going to see uni. And she said it was the best decision she ever made. She absolutely loves it, advocates for it so much. I'd love to know what, first of all, what made you do an apprenticeship?

And second of all, what made you go to Westminster? So my dad actually did an apprenticeship. My dad didn't go to university, but my dad was an engineer. So STEM subjects felt a bit more accessible in terms of an apprenticeship. I was always political. Obviously, my dad's British, Polish. My grandfather came to the UK escaping Nazi-occupied Poland. My mum is from Indonesia and in Indonesia they have a very interesting journey with democracy and the right to vote and police brutality. And these were all things that I'd learned just having conversations when I was younger. So and also going home to Indonesia quite a lot as a child and seeing extreme poverty, extreme deprivation, you know, very, there are lots of people in Indonesia that don't even have a birth certificate which limits their access to education, limits their access to healthcare. So naturally that's going to make somebody political.

I actually wanted to be an MEP. Brexit very quickly derailed those options for me. Yeah. Which is fine. I've eventually got over it. So I always knew that something political was what I wanted to do. I just didn't know what because a lot of people that go into those types of careers have parents that have already or family friends or family friends or.

go to Eaton or Oxbridge. And I have none of those things. I actually spoke to a career advisor saying, this is what I want to do. Like, government politics are my best A level. I loved it. I loved my teachers. What can I do without going to university?

Because I was having a meltdown. I was adamant that I was going to fail everything and that I was going to be a complete failure of my life. And I didn't want to be too far away from my mum because the universities I looked at were too far. Yeah. And my career advisor basically said, Well, there aren't any options.

You either go to university or, you know, you're going to have to be a bit more realistic about what you can achieve. Which is a really terrible career advice. And being a stubborn, gobby teenager, I was like, I'm not going to take that as an answer. I'm going to go find my own. So that day I went home and I just Googled apprenticeships and it was the first thing that came up. Now, my apprenticeship in that particular year was just as, if you talk about applications per place, was more competitive than Oxbridge. there were 500 places, 7,500 applicants.

Wow. And because of all my beauty pageant, external, extracurricular activities, I absolutely smashed that interview and was offered one of those places. So I left co-op to go and work at Westminster. And also, why would you turn, I think I was on 25,000 pounds a year at 18.

Why would you turn that down? When all your friends are getting themselves into debt. Yeah, yeah. And that's what my dad was trying to tell me, but obviously it's an 18-year-old that wants to me, that wants to make friends and go out and socialise and watching your friends go travelling and you're sitting this really dingy office.

I was at MOJ at the time, a really dingy Ministry of Justice's office. You're like, what am I doing with my life? But now, now I'm older and I look back at it was the best decision I've ever made. And I try and get my previous secondary school to do more on it because obviously the way that schools are graded

is by how many people go on to university. Yeah. Which isn't an indicator of success at life. And also, there were so many negative connotations about apprenticeships, like it was for people that were stupid

that only physical labour jobs were apprenticeships. That's not true. You can get legal apprenticeships now. And we know how competitive the legal field is. So, yeah, I'm a massive advocate for them. And I think, like,

uni isn't for everybody. And I especially think if you have something like ADHD, Like, I have ADHD and I absolutely bombed my A levels and had to really sort myself out to get the grades that I needed. And actually, medical school was probably the best thing for me because it was so, so, so structured. I had really rigorous routine, but it was routine that was really varied. So it just worked really well for me. My brother also has ADHD and he did a normal degree.

And he just, it was so, so, so tough for him. Yeah. Because you have that flexibility and it's like asking a feeling. fish to walk, you know? If you put someone in uni who isn't suited to uni and they fail, that's then their self-belief of what they think that they can achieve. Whereas you put them in a different environment and they thrive. So I think it's not, it's a conversation we're really not having enough. Yeah. And then how did you end up at the Ministry of Health? So I had a very weird, varied career there. So I did like a couple years in legal aid. I went and worked for the

Justice Secretary at the time. I did actually mention it in one of my pre-love Island interviews and I think he got asked about it during a really serious news interview, which was really awkward. Oh my gosh. Poor him, sorry. Then Brexit came along. Ministry of Justice is one of those departments that's really not that impacted because court systems are very like managed internally.

There's not that much many links to European legislation. Then I went into working in food, which is. all Brexit related. So yeah, I worked in Brexit for ages and obviously because we would start stopping Brexit, projects would start stopping. And then my project closed down and then I get a phone call being like, right,

well, time to work in the Department of Health now. So one Monday when COVID started kicking off, I just rocked up and there it was. So it wasn't like I planned to go that I actually wanted to work in the Department for Education because I felt like, you know, apprenticeships. I want to do something with education and careers advisors. even then I could see how we were failing different groups of people because the people that

are working there, I mean there's nothing wrong with them. They're intelligent people but the majority of the people I saw were white middle aged men. So what do you know about? Because we worked in test and trace. What do you know about getting certain demographics of society to test places or you know how to get messaging out there? And it's not a one size fits all. Yeah. But yeah, that was very stressful. I don't know how long I was there, but it's one big blur. Yeah, I'd imagine, God, during COVID as well. But it's interesting you say about the whole, like, white, white posh man thing. Because I don't know if this is me trying to see the best in people, but I firmly believe that, like, I don't think these people set out to be, to not

recognize that there's other groups of people. I think my world is, I don't know, like a white girl, white young female from North Wales and I view everything through that lens and I'm a firm believer that those people they don't do it maliciously like to exclude but you can't envision a world outside of what you've experienced and that is why diversity is just so so so important

you can't replicate the power of having a diverse workforce purely because they bring those conversations in you know they say well what are we doing for people who maybe English isn't their first language? What are we doing for people who don't have access to Wi-Fi because they're in poverty? Or how are we making test and trace work for them?

Yeah, I think I mentioned that in a meeting and people just looked at me and were like, yeah, we should probably go and think about that. But then it's like, that's why it frustrates me so much now when you see certain political parties talking about how terrible DEI is. I didn't get the job because I'm a mixed race woman. I got the job because I'm qualified. You asked me to be here in that particular project.

I'm obviously qualified. I just happen to be a mixed race bisexual woman. Yeah, yeah. That didn't go to university. And therefore, like you said, I view things in a different lens. I have different lived experience. And when you are building policies that literally impact every single person's life, like for the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep,

why should it not be viewed in their life? lens as well. Why she did not benefit them. And DEI is not just about the fact that I'm mixed race or a woman. Dei could be about the fact that my boyfriend's from a working class background. And that's important too, but they don't want to factor that in. He's a white man. He looks at things from a working class perspective. Yeah. And I will never be able to view things his way. He'll never be able to view things my way. But then there could be a way to meet in the middle. And that is a good thing. D.R. is a good thing, but it's, they're pushing it as if these people that are in there are not qualified, they just got there because of their race, which is not true. Yeah. And for anyone

listening who does know what, D, I diversity, equality and inclusion, personally, I don't know how you did it because I think I would go into work every single day and want to scream. I cried. Quite a lot, yeah. Yeah. I would just feel like the sense of injustice would drive me up the walls. Yeah. Okay, so then how? How? How on earth do you then end up going on Love Island? So after spending how many days of my life crying, I went back to Brexit. I couldn't believe the sentence that I miss Brexit came out of my mouth. And I met two lovely women who were, I guess, like, we were the same level in the projects.

I went to transport, another sexy department in government. And I met these two women and they were like, you'd be great. Love Island and I was like you are joking. I was like there is no way in hell you would catch me doing it. I never watched it. Yeah. I hated it on our lunch breaks and everybody would be talking about it because I feel like the left one out again. So reliving previous trauma because I didn't watch it. I guess I was probably in the side of like rubbish like trash TV like why is everyone so interested and I get it like people want to switch their brains off. That's why they watch it. So from a different lens now like I get it why people were interested in it. But I just so time

consuming. They were like, please, like, just apply. It would be a funny story. That was always a thing. Just apply. It would be a funny story. Okay, fine. I sent the initial application. I get a link to say, submit a video. I've moved out of London at this point. And I'm staying with my parents temporarily while my dad's redecorating my house. I'm in my Disney Pinocchio. I still have the video. Disney Pinocchio pajamas. My parents' armchair talking about how. even though I work for one of the biggest employers in the country, dating is virtually impossible. Dating apps are the trenches of hell.

Do us a favour and find me a nice person to be with. I thought, well, then I was going to be interested in that. Lots of people were going to put loads of effort in. But I think it was probably the fact that I probably looked like I didn't care so much that they made them interested. I think it was also my job that made them interested and the fact that I did beauty pageants. Yeah.

Because I did include that in there. and then it was just like next interview, next interview. And I thought, like, I know people that have basically got towards the end. Eventually it's going to stop and they're going to be like, no, like, thanks for your time, but we're going to go a different direction. And it just kept going. Yeah. And I just kept laughing about it with my, so when you see newspaper articles that say like,

the civil service had no idea, that's a lie. Okay. They all knew. Yeah. And we all spoke about it in our team meetings and just kept going and going. And I was like, oh my God, when is it actually going to stop? Yeah. And it got to the point.

where they say to you there is never a guarantee that anything's going to work out until you literally walk in the villa doors. So you could go through all of the filming hoops every single interview. You could do you have to do like blood tests like SCI checks drug tests, all this stuff. Psychological assessments. You could go through everything. You could fly out. You could quarantine and still not be on the show. Okay. So it always prefaced that. Now I loved my job. I was never that interested in going on. So I said unless you guarantee me, an OG position and I'm going in on day one. Yeah. I'm not coming. And they were like, yeah, yeah, we'll see, we'll see. And then we did the VT filming, which was hilarious because like there are other islanders in the building. You're not allowed to see each other.

Okay. So they're all with walkie talkies and they've all got nicknames for us and they're all fake. The Addison Lee's got a fake name for me. I have to remember what my fake name is. It was like Sydney Green or something silly like SG. I do always think that. How do you film this? thing when yeah. They drop you off at like a really bizarre pub and behind the pub is like a big

filming studio. Oh wow. So I was like what on earth am I doing here? Yeah, it's all very hush-hush. I felt like I was in some like Mission Impossible film. It was so much fun apart from the fact that I had to stand on the back of a jeep in a bikini with 30 crew in masks staring back at me and a confetti cannon. Nice. Not really what I thought I would be doing with my career. But I just enjoyed it. Like it was fun to me And then I get a phone call being like Right sort your stuff out in two weeks of flying out And I was like oh my god

Okay And I had a meeting and recently On the way to the airport Of being like we spoke to the press team You have to make sure you don't say X, Y and Z about your job And I was like no one's gonna want to hear me Talk about Brexit anyway

Yeah Like no one's gonna care And then yeah I in very Sharon style Got caught out at the airport For having overweight luggage Nice So it was so bait

I don't know how anyone not realized I've stood in the middle of London City Airport with all of my bikinis just spread out across the floor. But yeah, that was a crazy experience. Again, they tell you in quarantine, no guarantee until you're setting through the door. Then they take all my stuff from me and leave me with one bikini.

And we're like, right, we'll see you tomorrow and we pick you up to take you. And like, that was that was that. So they take your stuff to the villa for you. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then, so how do they, does everyone fly out from different airports

or were their contestants who were also on your flyer? I don't know if they were contestant. I was the last one to arrive. Okay. So they wouldn't have been any other on my flight, but I don't know if there were other people. I remember Faye saying to me that because of the date that she had to fly out, she had to fly from London to Paris, Paris to somewhere else in Spain,

then from there to Miorca. So she did like a full round trip of Europe. But I was the last one to fly out. I had to fly from London City, which I didn't even think flew to Miorca. Yeah. But it was me and crew. Yeah. So lots of crew knew who I was.

when they were on the flight, I had no idea who they were. Oh. I only knew my chaperone. Okay. And that was it. That relationship with this chaperone must be quite interesting. I loved her. Nice.

I loved her. Because you have to spend so much time with you. I have to live with them. Oh my gosh. Two weeks? Yeah, because we had quarantine. Oh, of course. We had to do the nose swabs every day.

If we left our villa. Yeah. Done. Like, because you've broken the quarantine rules. Oh my gosh. So it was crazy. Like we were in very close proximity with each other. But we had very similar interests.

So we were just sat there reading Laura Pates by the pool, in an ice cream. So I had a great time. Like if you sent me home after the quarantine, I probably would have been quite happy. No. I actually saw it at a festival last summer. Nice.

I was sober. She was not. So I don't know if she remembers that interaction. But yeah, no, like I loved her. I loved that part of the experience. So you loved that part of the experience. Yeah. How was the rest of it?

it because I, like, I'm someone I like my space. I like to just like just be alone, you know, pop on a nice TV series chill out. How did you like manage? I'd imagine that's incredibly intense the whole experience. Yeah, it's a very big sensory overload. Like the villa is nice, but there's a lot of bright colors around. A lot of bright lights. You have no control over them. So I couldn't even sit in a dark room if I wanted to. And I went from living with me and my dog. to being in a villa with 11 other people and having to share a bedroom and a bed not with 11 people but like the bedroom with 11 other people

so for me it felt like a big it's a big invasion of your privacy, your private space your free time because there's no such thing as free time and I don't know it sounds like a big first world problem like I am expenses paid on a big inclusive holiday That's what people view it as. But that's not the case at all. You get dictated to when you wake up, when you go to sleep, when you eat,

when you speak to certain people sometimes. Sometimes what you wear. It was a crazy experience. And yeah, I don't know if it's a TMI, I had, you know, when you fly and sometimes your body just doesn't want to work properly. Yeah, you constipate. Yeah. Not even just in the two weeks quarantine, my whole time in the villa.

Yeah. There's a science to that. Do you know, basically, you know, if you take a crisp packet up on a flight? Yeah, it expands. Yeah, so imagine the air in your tummy doing the same thing. Okay. And then sometimes it doesn't sort of sort itself out. Five weeks?

Yeah. I was there for seven weeks. And then it's probably stress as well. Like you probably, even if you didn't realize you were stressed, like the underlying ongoing fight or flight, poor sleep. Just, yeah. Terrible food as well. It was the food bad? Oh my God.

They're catering for loads of people because they can't go for the crew, but the food was not great. But I remember just being given loads of like dates and tablets by the medical team and nothing was working. So for the whole time, I just could. And also there's no privacy in the bathrooms. And you can't just sit there and like just wait for things to happen. This is a big overshare. Yeah. Do you know what?

Like all the things I've thought about is like you might up when you go for a poo. I take my mic off They say to like keep it on but even if you're turning it off Yeah It's the psychological Nuss of it being around my neck That's a terrible

Poor use of language But like the psychological Psychology of it being around my neck And around my waist Yeah There's already a camera in the bathroom Is there? It goes into a box

So the crew aren't seeing it But like if there's an altercation Oh They can view it via the camera Because it's there Okay So I'm looking I'm in a really small room with a camera and a mic on the other side of the door.

So, yeah, it's not the most private, comfortable of spaces. And also, I'm a bit of a weirdo. I develop an emotional attachment to a bathroom. Okay. Yeah. It's an emotional experience, you know? There's a lot of hormones released. Yeah.

Yeah, like, if I worked in an office, I would always go to the same toilet. And I'd be very emotionally distraught if that toilet was in use when I needed to go. So sometimes because of COVID you weren't allowed to go to the upstairs because crew had been in there and they have to wait for like germs to have been there for a certain length of time so you couldn't catch COVID or something. Oh my God. So I one time got very upset. I wasn't allowed to use the upstairs bathroom in the middle of the night. Oh no. Yeah.

So I'm a bit, that's like my weird thing. I develop emotional attachments to bathrooms. That's nice. I think that's, I think I can relate to this one, like your favorite work bathroom. I definitely had a favourite work bathroom as well that was... Okay, fine, so it's not just me. Yeah, no, I completely agree. When you realised you were going in,

did you at that point think what life was going to be like afterwards and was it then that you knew, oh, I want to use my platform for good if I come out and have a big platform. Yeah, so during the assessment stuff, you have to put your parents down on your application for some reason. because my mum's English wasn't that great I didn't want to be questioned loads by random people and I wasn't allowed to be there

so I put my brother down he did all of the parental like stuff for me because I didn't want to tell my dad how did your dad? Yeah, no I had to tell my dad they basically like you have to tell him but like backtrack how did your dad take it when you said you were going on he was current he was excavating my garden

at that moment in time he was stood on a digger and he was like over my dead body and he was like yelling so loud and I was like the neighbors can hear like you're going to ruin it before it even happens yeah so he was like you've worked very hard at your job you've done very well for yourself why would you throw it all away and I actually had a bit of a weird thing that I caught COVID before we knew you could survive COVID I thought I might die yeah even though my symptoms weren't so bad but you just didn't know yeah so I was like well if I died then all I would have done would have worked or like looked after someone else so for me this was like the

was holiday I never had, but on steroids. And I made a promise to him that I would go back to my job. Yeah. He hasn't remembered that one, but I promised him, I like, look, it'll be fine. So once a lifetime experience, it could open some doors for me. My parents didn't watch Love Island. They didn't know anything about it, which was probably for the best. Once my dad heard that there could be opportunities for me to work in TV or whatever,

he was like, fine. But don't do anything that would. My parents maybe basically set me ground rules. Okay. What were the ground rules? No sex on TV. Okay. Which I wouldn't do anyway because I think that it's weird. I don't think you'd be able to, well, I mean, I know they say that you forget that the cameras are there, but I really don't think.

But I don't forget that the beds are next to me. Yeah. So you forget the cameras are there, but I don't forget the microphone and the headboard or the people next to me, especially when some of them are really loud snorers. So, yeah, I couldn't do it. No sex on TV. Not to do anything that would jeopardize my job. and that's probably why people thought I was really boring

because I was very reserved, like not the full personality that I am because I didn't want to ruin the possibility of going back. I can't remember what some of the other ones were. I had not to talk about family members, not to be overly personal, which is quite hilarious now, considering how overly personal I am on social media.

But it's on your terms. I think there's such a difference between talking about what, like I can't imagine how it must have felt to worry about how things might be cut and put on air. When social media is your control, you say that on how you want it to say it. Yeah, yeah. And like I have editorial power, right? You don't in Love Island.

Yeah. And I actually said in my pre-screening interview, it's going to go one or two ways. The public are either going to love me because of my values and what I do and who I am, or they're going to hate me for the exact same reasons. And it's all down to how I'm portrayed. Yeah. Now it's easy to villainise somebody like me and make me look like the bad person

because I speak my mind and I say what I think. And I did an element of that but it was not always well received and that's because I didn't have control of how things were viewed. Is there anything that happened that you felt particularly you got a bad edit? I think we all know the one.

There was one and it's always, it still comes up now. I still get trolled for it now which I think is comical of like people haven't moved on after four years but obviously there was a discreement argument whatever people want to call it between myself and a male islander

after a number of comments were made about women's bodies and their right to choose about plastic surgery or treatments or whatever you want to call them now I know I got a bad edit because I didn't the first time I watched it was live on Jeremy Vine thank you Channel 5

I deliberately didn't want to watch it because of the level of trolling that I'd received off the back of it. But I can see why people were annoyed by it because of the way it was cut and the way it was shown, like it looked like I was insecure about the work I had had done at the time. It made it look like I was disagreeing with a man's right to have a preference and that I was making comparisons between racism and cosmetic surgery, which if anyone with a brain cell, as someone who is mixed race and has experienced racism

at different points in my life. I would never do that or intentionally do that. And not to be like, oh, I've got a black friend. All of my best friends in my closest circle are black women. I hear their stories of race.

And I think that's probably where the comment came from because I was making connections in my brain to other comments. Other Islanders have said. If that whole 48 hours, including that every single thing that was said in that game was aired, I would not have been the one that was palm blast. Yeah.

And, you know, I don't ever want to talk about everything that everyone said because there's no point in people getting retrolled for things they did four years ago because they're not that deep. But at that moment in time, a male Islander had made a comment about liking, his preference being mixed race women and using particularly derogatory terms in relation to mixed race women to the point where Voice of God, said, I would change what you said. Oh, really? Obviously, there was...

When you say Voice of God, is this like over the speaking phone? Oh yeah, there's producers and rocks and stuff, telling you stuff. Like when to get up and... Okay, sorry, carry on. No, no, it's fine. Made a couple of... Well, not appropriate comments

was told to change what you're going to say. Obviously, there was the aired comments about body hair. Yeah. And then there was the multiple comments of plastic surgery. Now those comments that were said in that game were not the only comments they were said. There were comments made 24, 40 hours prior

to me in private. Yeah. At this point, it's like shaking a champagne bottle when the cage is off. The corks gonna pop eventually. And at that point, I just snapped. I had enough because I was looking at the girls around me and some of them just felt like shit.

Yeah. How dare anyone make someone else feel like crap because they may not be what you want? Yeah. That's not your play. Yeah. We all have bug bears and issues and insecurities with our own bodies, our own image, particularly in that setting where you don't know what you look like on camera.

Yeah. You have no idea how everyone's viewing you. And your parents are watching. You potentially crumble on live TV. Or not live, but yeah. So, yeah, I blew up. Yeah. And that was where the, I guess, the anger, I probably had I had access to my life,

safety net, i.e. my friends, my family and like everything else, I probably wouldn't have said it in the tone that I said it in. I still would have called it out. Yeah. But people forget that I have no access to my books, no access to my music, to the outside world, to my family, my friends. It's like COVID lockdown without access to the internet. Yeah. And your hourly, daily walk. It's a pressured environment. Everything about it. It's a social experiment. Yeah. You're pushed to your limit and producers drip feed you information. whether it's true or not, about things that are happening around you. So you don't know who to trust.

You don't know what reality is. Yeah. And therefore, everything feels heightened. I cried over a biscuit. I wouldn't cry over a biscuit in real life. Like, I don't know, depending on what part of my cycle, I would cry over it. But I wouldn't want it on national television.

Yeah. People are watching it. Yeah. And they are judging you for it. So, you know, and also there were other things that I wanted to say. Yeah. to other people, but I was stopped from doing so. Yeah.

So it just looked like I was just picking on one person. And actually, if you let me have free reign, I probably would have gone for all of them. But yeah, like, look, I took it on the chin. I understand where people are upset by it. That was never my intention. So I'll always apologise for my part in upsetting people because I'd never want to do that. But I just think that rules are ruining reality TV, i.e., like, you're restricting too many people, you're trying to cast type people too much to a personality that might not be theirs.

But also people are ruining reality TV because it's entertainment. Not everything you see is real. Not everything we experience is real. Yeah. That is why there was so much stuff being offered to you in terms of mental health support when you left because of viewers, because of people. Yeah. Not because of necessarily what I experienced in there.

I think the hardest thing that I had to transition was learning how to sleep by myself again. But it was other people that was making it really difficult. Yeah. So I really want to come on to the more important stuff that you've done after Love Island. What point when you came out did you decide, right, I'm going to use this platform for good? It's hard. When you leave Love Island, people are throwing new deals left, right and centre. Now, there was probably a time in my life where I thought that I was maybe not good enough because I didn't have the same number as followers as other people. I didn't make it to the end. So am I going to be offered these big, big deals? Probably not. I mean, I was offered one pretty hefty deal, but it was just not the right thing for me.

So I turned it down straight away. You don't know what to do. You are relying on good management. And there are some managers out there that would just want to milk you for everything you are worth in those 12 months and then leave you high and dry. And I got very lucky. I found a manager that sat there and told me what I want to do. Yeah. Maybe not achievable, but we're going to try. And that's what I respected. And I respected the honesty because everybody was feeding me shit. Like, you know, we're going to get you all these big deals.

I don't care. Yeah. Like, this is who I am. And after 12, I'll go back to my job. Yeah. So I was in a weird place. I was like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm doing.

At that moment in time, lots of girls, I think they were from universities in the localish area to me. Okay. Had come out and said that they were experiencing spiking and people were being spiking. I turned around to my publicist, Jen, at the time, and said, I was spiked a year ago. Yeah. I want to stand in solidarity. I've got all of these media outlets, like, talking to me all the time about, and, like, hanging on my every word, social media is rife. People are looking for what I'm doing.

What can I do to help these young women? Yeah. And I just did it. I just wrote a piece for Grazzi. I was the first Love Island to self-pen a post, an article in Gratzi. It was published in the actual magazine. And I just didn't expect it to snowball. It was never my plan to be this big activist.

It was always my plan to go back to the Civil Service. But it just snowballed. And it was becoming one thing after the other. And I do think it was my experience of being in the Civil Service. And then like all these other things that were part of me as a charity work and from pageants. Yeah. And all these like little things. It just made sense.

And it was just building and building and building. And four years. I still don't know how I got here. It's never planned. It looks like it is, but it was all completely by accident. I think it's what happens when you follow what you're passionate about and you're not focused on the numbers.

You're focused on just doing, I don't know, living a life that you find worth living. This is the thing about Love Island. There are so many of us. There's like 36 per season. I don't know what season we're on now. They're bringing back All-Stars. Like, I had 12 months to make something of this.

Otherwise you kind of just fade into the background. And some people say I have and that's their own personal opinion. But like... I absolutely disagree. I find like all your reels. There's so many of them that are just absolute gold, but carry on. But like you have 12 months to milk it for what is worth and make something of yourself to the point where people now know you for something. Yeah.

So everybody wants to be Molly May. But the reason why Molly May is Molly May is because there is only one of her. Yeah. And you cannot replicate that because you are not her. No. And I know that. So why would I try and go after the same deals that she's had because we're not the same person? It won't work.

And I knew that. And I think maybe that's just like conversations I had with my parents about what wouldn't work for me. But I knew that. So what is my USP? What is different about me? What got me into Love Island? It was my job. It was the fact I did beauty pageants.

So why am I not making politics glamorous? Yes. That's what it is. Like those are my USP. So why am I not milking? Not milking that. Why am I not using that to my advantage? Molly May's USP was that she was already an influencer and she had that sense of style that was natural to her.

Making politics glamorous, God, I absolutely adore that. Before we close off, I really would love, when researching this podcast, I read a statistic I had, I was really shocked by, I had no idea. One in three women will get an abortion in their lifetime. Unfortunately, I think it's a really brave topic to talk about abortion and miscarriage. Can you tell me a little bit about the work that you've been doing in those areas and what work you think is still left to be done? I think that in terms of work that still needs to be done, I'm sick of every, like it makes two to tango, makes two to make a baby a fetus, whatever you want to call it. Why is the blame consistently on women? If I decided not to have an abortion, I would be blamed for being a single mum.

I've seen comments even by doctors that I follow on social media about if a man, says you didn't want to be a father you shouldn't hold him responsible. I'm sorry, but you had your choice to put something on the end of it and you made a different choice. Therefore, you have to deal with the consequences and that is a child. And if I had an abortion, I'm going to be blamed because why didn't I do something? Well, contraception failed. It's not 100%. Yeah. You're an idiot if you think it is. Concerception failed me and I knew that whatever happened, I would have to deal with the consequences. And I had some horrific messages. I had someone call me Lucy Lettby 2.0

Oh my God. I had someone send me a case for a woman who was brutally murdered by her former partner in America and said you deserve this treatment I had people threaten to docks me or because I had an abortion and I know I'm not the only one

and I know I'll never be the last woman to have one and well one in three women will get an abortion in their lifetime this isn't some niche thing that is going on and it's always gone on before it was legal it's gone on unsafely behind back doors this is the thing

regardless of whether it was the right decision or not and it was 100% the right decision I don't regret it at all it is still the hardest decision I've ever had to make and I had to live with the emotional trauma of going through something so physical

so when people sit there and say you took the easy way out trust me it was not not easy at all and any woman that's ever had one or any person that's ever had an abortion, whether you are the person that is taking on the physical role or not, it is awful. And I would never wish that on my worst enemy. It's the same of spiking. I'm consistently blamed for it. What is it that I did wrong? What is it

that I could have done better? And I'm sick of women being blamed for things that when they are just surviving. That is what it is. You're making a decision to survive with the cost of living crisis. Some people can't even afford to put food on their own table. How are you going to do that for a child? And when people sit there and say, I'm pro-life, okay, well, what about all the children in the care system? What about all the children that are going to school hungry and you sit there and say, not my child, not my problem? But you want to sit there and tell me that I'm the worst person on this planet because I decided I wasn't ready, or if I'll ever be ready. And I think that is why I've been very fortunate in a sense that for every bad message there are 10 good

and those 10 good are what I remember and if I make one person feel better about a decision they've made or something that's happened to them or offered them a safe space then I did the right thing. Sharon we've been asking all the guests on this podcast, this question. What do you wish every woman knew before she was? 25. Oh my God. Do you know what? I was so in my head about being, I think we all make that promise when we're teenagers. By the time I'm 25, I'm going to have a mortgage, a white picket fence, two kids and be married. Don't put that timeline on yourself. Because we live so long now.

25 is so young. If it happens to you, it's great. If it doesn't, don't force it. You know, I'm very fortunate now that I'm with one of the most loving men that I've ever met. But it wasn't always like that. And I stayed in so many situations. I shouldn't have been. because society told me by the time I'm 30, I'm off goods. I'm sold down the dress. If you look at pictures of me between before I was 25 and now, we are so different, but in a good way,

don't be in a hurry to be at the finish line. Because it's not always greener on the other side. Like to some people that have it, it looks great, but it's hard work. So don't be in a hurry to be at the end, whether that's romantically career-wise or anything else. Just everything will happen at the right time. I love that so much.

And I think that, you know what, I love all the work that you're doing at the moment. I think it's absolutely incredible. And we absolutely need more gobby, young women who are making politics glamorous. So thank you so, so much for coming on. It's been an absolutely. absolute pleasure. Thank you.