'Love Island USA' star Huda Mustafa details 'extremely abusive' upbringing: The biggest revelations from her 'Call Her Daddy' interview

Yahoo

18-07-2025

Mustafa spoke about her childhood, her relationship with Jeremiah Brown and who she thinks was the 'fakest' person in the villa.
Huda Mustafa opened up this week about her tumultuous childhood and all things Love Island USA.
Less than a week after the Season 7 finale, Mustafa sat down for an interview with podcaster Alex Cooper on the July 16 episode of Call Her Daddy. In addition to sharing her take on her volatile relationships in the villa, as well as her now-viral series of crash-outs, Mustafa spoke candidly about the experiences that shaped her while growing up, including the physical abuse she witnessed behind closed doors.
Mustafa's interview is filled with both heartbreaking revelations and moments of reflection and accountability. Here are the key takeaways.
She grew up in an 'extremely abusive household'
The youngest of five children, Mustafa revealed that while she had a happy childhood and is close to her siblings, her home life was rife with physical abuse from her father.
'Growing up, my dad was extremely abusive,' Mustafa said. 'He was very abusive, like towards my mother, towards me and my siblings.'
Mustafa recounted a specific memory from her childhood in which she saw her father physically assaulting her mother.
'I'm gonna cry,' she said. 'That was my childhood.'
When Mustafa was in the fourth grade, her mother made the decision to leave Mustafa's father, taking her children with her. The now-24-year-old fitness trainer said it's been eight years since she last spoke to her father. Without going into detail, she said some members of her family still don't believe certain things she says happened between her and her dad.
'There was a lot of times where I was alone with my dad, and there's things that, like, my family doesn't believe me about,' she said. 'I kept a lot of things to myself, and then there was a point where I got really scared. And I remember calling my mom, just telling, like, 'Please pick me up.' Like, 'Please pick me up.' … I would lock myself in the bathroom. My dad went in his office and was, like, working, and I, like, tiptoed out when she was there.'
'To this day, I don't think anyone in my family believes anything I've said about that,' she added. 'Maybe it's hard to believe. But I just accepted that I know what was going on.'
She had suicidal thoughts and an eating disorder
Mustafa told Cooper she was heavily bullied in middle school and that at one point, she contemplated taking her own life.
'I did not want to live anymore,' she said.
She recalled that one of her classmates, after learning Mustafa dreamed of becoming a model, constantly told her that she'd never be good enough to be one. Mustafa said she developed an eating disorder as a result.
'I stopped eating for days at a time,' she said. 'I would never eat anything. I was bulimic. I would literally chew food and then spit it in a trash can, just to taste it, because I thought I wasn't skinny enough.'
'Love Island' fans allegedly called CPS on her
Mustafa, who shares a 4-year-old daughter with her ex-boyfriend, revealed that some Love Island USA viewers allegedly called Child Protection Services on her while she was in the villa.
'The craziest thing I've heard is that people called CPS on me,' Mustafa said. 'I was like, 'Are you so serious right now?' First of all, my daughter's dad was fully aware of what I was doing. He was fully OK with it. He signed consent. Like, we had that conversation. We're fine.'
Mustafa doubled down on her decision to go on the reality TV show. Putting yourself first, she told Cooper, 'doesn't make you a bad mom.'
'Me going on a show does not make me a bad person. You know how many mothers are, you know, doing tours around the world, who are doing all these things, and they can't see their kids? It, like, it doesn't make you a bad mom. To do something for yourself in that way. At all,' she said.
She details her relationship with Jeremiah
Upon entering the villa, Mustafa quickly got involved with fellow Love Island USA contestant Jeremiah Brown. Their romance was soon plagued by jealousy, which ultimately led to Mustafa's slew of viral meltdowns, which were broadcast on television.
Reflecting on her emotional reaction to conflicts in her relationship with Brown, Mustafa told Cooper, 'Do I think I could have handled that a lot better? Yeah. And that's what taking accountability and learning from your mistakes is.'
Mustafa admitted to missing a lot of red flags early on in their relationship but also acknowledged where she went wrong.
'I think that we both had faults in the relationship,' she said. 'I don't think that anyone should fully take blame for anything, in all honesty.'
She shares who the 'fakest' person in the villa was
In a round of rapid-fire questions at the end of the interview, Cooper asked Mustafa, 'Who was the fakest in the villa?' Without any hesitation, Mustafa replied, 'Cierra.'
Cierra Ortega sent shockwaves through the villa when she was abruptly removed from the show after she was discovered to have used an anti-Asian slur in previous social media posts.
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