Love Island winner Ekin-Su Culculoglu has shared a sad admission about life after going on the dating show. The Turkish star won the ITV2 show alongside partner Davide Sanclimenti in 2022 and the couple were popular in the polls, winning with a massive 63.7 percent of the public vote.
But despite her popularity on-screen, Ekin-Su has said she has lost almost every friend she had before she went on the show and has found it hard to trust people. Speaking to Cosmopolitan UK, the 28-year-old said: "I’ve lost every friend I had. I don’t have any friends. I have one friend and that’s it.
"Unfortunately, with the fame, you see people’s true colours. People just want to be your friend because of your status, and it’s a hard industry to trust. No, I don’t actually have friends left. People I’d known for 10 years who were in my life… Selling stories is not very nice. I wouldn’t do that to someone.
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"If they were happy, I would support them." She went on: "Unfortunately, I had that coming out of the villa, I had to delete people out of my life. But I am happier this way. Sometimes keeping your circle small is the best, and you don’t always need friends. So long as you know who you are, that’s fine."
Ekin-Su also revealed she struggled with her mental health while competing on Dancing On Ice earlier this year, but had to “pretend everything was fine”. She was the third celebrity eliminated from ITV skating competition, and had said she pulled a muscle on her left leg shortly before the week she had to skate for her survival.
After the show, she said she found work commitments "mentally draining" and needed to take some time out for herself by going to the Maldives with her partner where she could forget about “the stuff online”.
She told the magazine: “There have been things in my life that I can’t mention now that have affected my mental health for a while. I had to keep smiling and pretend everything was fine. This was during Dancing On Ice when there were things in the background – not relationship related, by the way – (they were) work related that was very hard.
"I couldn’t say anything. It was mentally draining. That was one of the tough times. It took me a while to get back out of it… Your mental health is your priority. After my trip to the Maldives with Davide, we turned off our phones, we didn’t check the internet. He was helping me forget things (and) the stuff online."
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