Love Island's Shakira reveals real reason for villa feud with co-stars after Ofcom complaints

Daily Mirror

3 days ago

Shakira Khan has spoken out about her feud with Meg and Helena in the Love Island villa just one day after she and Harry Cooksley finished as runners up on the reality show
Shakira Khan has revealed the real reason behind her infamous villa fallout with Meg and Helena on Love Island. The reality star, 22, was named as runner-up on this year's series of the ITV2 dating show alongside boyfriend Harry Cooksley but earlier on in the run, she developed a massive feud with two of her co-stars.
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Explaining that she was made out to be a 'threat' to both Helena and Meg, she said: "What it stems from is on day one or day two I was put in a position where I had to graft and so was deemed as a threat. From then on, I was treated differently." Shakira struck up a friendship with Toni Laities, who eventually walked off with the £50,000 cash prize with boyfriend Cach Mercer.
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She explained: "We sort of flocked together. When you are a threat to someone's relationship you are not going to be the best of pals." It comes after reports of all the celebrities rumoured to be joining BBC Strictly Come Dancing 2025.
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In the days before the reality show reached the final, Shakira and Meg had a falling out on camera as they coldly told each other that they would 'never' be friends with one another on the outside world. And fans of the show quickly flooded social media with complaints that Shakira had fallen foul of the edit.
One wrote: "Why aren't they showing when Meg kept talking bad about Shakira? It's not fair that Shakira is getting all this heat because of what was shown yet Meg gets off Scott free producers do better!!!!!"
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Another said: "so what's your beef with Toni & Shakira?" as it became clear that there were two very divided groups on the island.
Throughout the series, Ofcom received thousands of complaints from viewers for various reasons. Last week, over 9,000 complained, with many claiming that Shakira was being bullied.
And for many weeks over the course of the series' long run, Harry had been coupled up with Helena before starting up something of a love triangle and eventually moving on to Shakira. Heartbreaking scenes aired when both Helena and Shakira broke down as they were played and pitted against one another. The Grafties returned to the villa and there was even more heartbreak in store.
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Shakira had decided to end things with Conor as she had "suppressed emotions" over Harry, whilst in the video clips, Harry was seen flirting with Shakira and said it was a "good idea" for them to get to know one another.
Harry later told Conor that he just felt a platonic connection with Helena and his bond with Shakira was far more "natural". Both women struggled to watch the scenes and broke down multiple times as they learned the truth.
Following the Grafties, Harry and Shakira decided to speak candidly to each other, with him telling her: "I have really tried with her [Helena], but we had like a week and it was, for me, the feelings were obviously way stronger and still are. I'm sorry I never like tried again. I really thought the door was just, like, slammed."
"Do you want some home truths… it's obviously the way you go about it and the steps you take in between to come to these conclusions obviously hurt people along the way," she told him.