Love Island winner Nathan Massey said he thought his fame was going to "last forever", but after he six months he was back working on a building site.
The reality TV star and carpenter won the show with Cara De La Hoyde in 2016, and the pair are now married with two children.
Chatting to former villa co-star Scott Thomas, who has a podcast, Nathan revealed he still returns to the building site he worked on before "when things get quiet and I am not afraid to admit it."
Both Scott and Nathan spoke about the amazing time they had in the villa, with Scott saying he felt a bit "let down" after the show.
Nathan replied: "Yep I felt that. I remember going to a meeting with my agent and I think it was about four months after... and you have got to imagine as well as I got built up, I won best male personality at the National Reality TV Awards, so I am thinking this is going off the Richter scale and I remember six months down the line I met with my agent and they said no one really want to pursue you guys anymore, I think they want to wait for the next years to come along. And that hurt."
Nathan likened himself to Woody in the film Toy Story, when Andy's new toy, Buzz comes along, and the cowboy is displaced.
He went on: "I went back to work with my dad, it hurt. I felt ashamed, I didn't want people to see me back in my work clothes. I would wear a tracksuit on the train and go to work and change."
Later on in the podcast, Nathan said: "I thought it was going to last forever, I will be honest with you.
"When I won Love Island, standing up there with Caroline and Cara and when she said them words, I thought 'that's it, I never have to go back on a building site ever again', but how wrong I was."
He went on: "I have been back to work, I have done bits and pieces and stuff on the site when things get quiet and I am not afraid to admit it, that's my roots.
"I live a lot better lifestyle now, there are door that have opened that never would have opened if I was still on a building site, great things going on with golf."
Nathan also paid tribute to his wife Cara and their first son Freddie, saying: "If I didn't have Cara in my life or I didn't get back with Cara and have Freddie in my life, I really don't know what would have happened to me. My son and my wife saved my life one million percent.
"It's a spiralling path to go down and if I didn't get back with Cara and didn't have my son to live for it would have been a lot different."
