I was ‘disappeared’ by Love Island in Casa Amor – my parents worried for me & I wasn't prepared for what happened next | The Sun
AS Love Island fans joked about Casa Amor girl Jazmine Nichol being “missing” from the villa, it all came flooding back for Jade Affleck.
In 2020, the 27-year-old excitedly packed her bags and headed from Yarm to South Africa, having bragged to all her pals she was set to be on one of the biggest shows on TV.
But once she’d been seen on TV, strutting into Casa Amor alongside another five girls – including Molly Smith – Jade was barely seen again.
In fact, speaking exclusively to The Sun, Jade has now confessed she was so absent from her episodes of Love Island that her family started to worry about her.
When Jade failed to couple up and returned home, realising she’d not been seen on-screen at all, she felt “absolutely devastated” .
"When I spoke to my mum and dad, they said that they were worried in case I wasn't enjoying myself," she says.
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“They didn't see me and I was like, 'Oh my God, did you not see this? Did you not see that?'
“And they were like, 'No, we genuinely had no idea what was going on'."
In reality, Jade was having lots of fun getting to know all the boys – including eventual winner Finley Tapp, and Callum Jones.
"I was having fun chats with everyone,” she says. “And yeah, fair enough, a lot of them weren't flirty, but if you're not in the storyline, you don't get the air time.
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“You could be cracking on, messing around and whatnot in the sidelines, but if your story doesn't fit with what's been going on previously, they just don't show any of it.”
Reported 'missing'
To make matters worse, afterwards Jade saw tons of people reporting her “missing” on social media and making memes about her.
She says: “They made me out as if I was mute, and I'm completely the opposite.
"You come out on such a high and then you go into such a low because you're like, ‘Oh god, I'm getting trolled because people think that I don't speak.’”
The same thing happened to Jazmine Nichol on this year's series – and she has slammed the show's producers for "editing her out".
Jade adds: "I know someone who's related to Jazmine from Casa Amor, and I messaged her and I said, 'Oh my God, I could not believe that. She's literally had about 20 seconds of screen-time. That's exactly what happened to me.'
“It was embarrassing, but you have no idea until you get out. You have no idea that no one's seen you."
Couldn't back out
Jade found out she’d be going into the villa two weeks before the 2020 series started, and was originally told she was going to be a bombshell who came into the villa alone.
“I thought, 'Amazing, I can go in and cause a little bit of trouble,'” she recalls.
But two days before she was due to fly to South Africa, she was told she’d be a Casa Amor girl – which Jade was disappointed about, but she’d already got herself hyped up to appear on the show.
She says: “I’d been watching it on the telly and all my friends knew that I was going, even though they weren't supposed to, so I couldn't exactly say, ‘No, I don't want to do it,’ after I’d waited five months for it!”
'People lose their jobs'
Jade, who now works in a jewellers, was working for a family friend when she went on Love Island, so she had a job to go back to.
But she's one of the lucky ones.
She says: “I’d just come out of a six-year relationship and I actually applied for it when I was drunk. I never actually thought that I'd end up getting on it.
“But I was so happy with my life before, and I thought, you know what? If my life changes, amazing, but, if not, I'm quite happy to just go back to doing what I was doing before.
“But I know a lot of people did quit jobs, like they expected to be famous when they got out.”
Despite not being shown on telly much, she has no regrets.
She says: “When I came off Love Island, it took me a long time to be able to watch it again and enjoy it, because I know exactly what goes on behind the scenes. But I think the cast this year are absolutely brilliant.
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“It's an opportunity that I can now tell people I’ve done and I was really, really lucky, so I don't regret it in any way, shape or form.
“But I do think they should give every single contestant a little bit more time on-screen, because you want people to at least know who you are.”
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