EXCLUSIVEHow plastic surgery ruined my body, by Love Island's Malin Andersson: A blue thread was left poking out of my nipple, pus came dripping out, my nipples grew out of shape. They screwed up my boobs and messed up my middle section
You can only imagine the confusion — and horror — Malin Andersson felt when, for no apparent reason, she saw a blue thread poking out from one nipple.
She found it about 18 months ago — almost seven years after 'graduating' from Love Island, and receiving some 'free' cosmetic surgery to ease her into her new influencer life. When she pulled on the thread, it 'just kept coming', so in a panic she booked an emergency appointment with a cosmetic surgeon.
There are no words to convey the distaste on her face as she mimes him pulling the surgical thread out of her.
'It felt as if my kidneys were being ripped out as well,' she says. 'By the end there was a piece this long.' She holds her hands a good foot apart. 'It was like a shoelace. He said: 'That shouldn't have been in there.' '
Indeed not. Malin is still discovering the cost of the smorgasbord of cosmetic surgery she had upon exiting Love Island. Not only did everyone want a piece of her, they wanted to improve a piece of her.
Malin Andersson starred on the second series of Love Island which aired in 2016. She has made a career since as an influencer, and boasts 670,000 followers on Instagram
'I could basically take my pick — and it was all on offer for free. It was like a menu, and I just had to select. So I did. I had all of it. For my starters I had fillers and Botox, for my mains I had my boobs done and liposuction. For dessert it was my teeth.
'For someone who was already insecure about how they looked, it was … well, it was dangerous. When you come out of the villa, that's the dangerous time.'
For those who aren't familiar with her, Malin was a star of the second series of Love Island, which aired in 2016. Aged 23, she hoped the show, then in its infancy, would catapult her into a sparkling 'new' life. In so many ways, it has. She has made a career since as an influencer, and boasts 670,000 followers on Instagram.
The 'love' part may not quite have materialised (there have been some car-crash relationships since) but in some ways, Malin is a walking talking example of what Love Island success can lead to — for better or worse.
Last month a shiny new crop of wannabe-influencers were introduced to Love Island fans, hoping to reach the final of the annual jamboree in a few weeks' time. How you wish they could be in a room with Malin — who at 31 is now older and wiser — to listen to some of her advice.
'People are already looking at their bodies and commenting,' she says. 'I can't tell you how damaging that is. I was already insecure going into the villa, but when I came out… ' She mimes again, this time an explosion. 'And I'm still paying the price.'
The new crop of female contestants all look like goddesses (it's pretty much a requirement), but so did Malin, then.
'But it wasn't enough,' she argues. 'Once the trolls got to work, I felt as if I couldn't compete. It messes with your head. It screws up everything — body, mind, all of it.'
Malin recently stripped off for her Insta fans, showing her newly slimline torso from all angles. What she wanted people to see wasn't the honed form, however, but the 'horrible' lumps and bumps that she feels have left her deformed — a legacy of that free liposuction.
Malin on Love Island in 2016. She is a walking talking example of what Love Island success can lead to — for better or worse
Malin shares her experiences of plastic surgery and liposuction on her social media accounts
'It's left my whole middle section in a mess, just as the breast lift left my boobs in a mess. I had to have that surgery revised because they screwed up my boobs. There was pus literally dripping out, and the nipples kind of grew out of the shape the surgeon originally created for them.
And — you don't think this far ahead when you are so desperate to get the 'perfect' body — it left me unable to feed my daughter. I was so desperate for that quick fix.'
She points out the 'wonky' lip that has never quite been the same since she embarked on fillers. Also, the peculiar ridges on her face (more fillers). 'I thought every piece of that surgery would give me confidence, and it did the opposite. It fed what was already there — a chronic lack of self-worth, which had nothing to do with how I looked.'
Even a few hours in Malin's company makes you hope lessons have been learned from her Love Island experience, and that girls like her are no longer allowed through the recruitment process. Forgive her cynicism, though.
'The problem is, I do think that these programmes attract exactly the sort of people I was — someone who desperately needed validation.
'These aren't people who think 'I am enough'. I never thought I was enough because there were always people out there who were happy to tell me I was ugly, fat, not as good as the other girls. I look back now and feel so desperately sad.'
You can't entirely lay the blame on the programme-makers, though. Malin admits to me that she lied about her struggles with body image to get on the show. These days there are more rigorous recruitment processes, designed to root out anyone with obvious mental health issues. But back then, she reckons, no one delved too deeply.
'There were a couple of forms to fill in, which asked if you had an eating disorder, or any history of mental health problems. I lied, obviously, just said 'no, no, no' all the way through.'
Should someone like you ever have been on that show? I ask.
'No,' she says, admitting that the death of one of her co-stars, Sophie Gradon who took her own life in 2018, was a devastating wake-up call. Again, there are more robust 'aftercare' procedures on Love Island now, but at the time, there was not.
For my starters I had fillers and Botox, for my mains I had my boobs done and liposuction. For dessert it was my teeth, admits Malin
Malin stripped off for her Insta fans, showing her newly slimline torso from all angles. What she wanted people to see wasn't the honed form, but the 'horrible' lumps and bumps that she feels have left her deformed
'I remember her ringing me up saying she wanted help and no one would help her. I know it is not their (the programme makers) responsibility, but… none of us had aftercare.'
Their paths were eerily familiar — both had been beauty queens before joining Love Island; both went on to struggle with alcohol and drug issues on their exit from the show.
'I think if I'd kept going on the path I was on I would have killed myself, too,' says Malin. 'Even having my daughter [Xaya was born in 2022] didn't change how I was feeling. It was only when I started to work on my inner self, rather than the outer one, that life made sense.'
Would she let her daughter go on a show like Love Island?
'No,' she says. 'No way.'
The irony is that, growing up in Bedfordshire, it was Malin's mum who was desperate for her to be famous, 'and to matter'. Her body was going to be her passport to that.
'My mum grew up in Sri Lanka, in real poverty. But she was weird about food with us. She would hide chocolate bars in the washing machine, and I'd end up bingeing on jam or putting sugar on my cereal to get that fix. I used food as a comfort.'
Her mum died from skin cancer in 2017, and there has been a lot of work on Malin's part understanding that complex relationship. 'I never tell my daughter 'You look beautiful', because with my mum it was all about the external. While she did love me, I didn't get any real sense of validation from her until I reached about 13 or 14 and my body started changing.
'When I was a tomboy with frizzy hair who never wanted to shower, she didn't want to know. But as soon as I started to become interested in hair extensions, she was like: 'Ah. Let's get you in beauty pageants.' I think subconsciously, it taught me that if I looked a certain way, doors would open.'
Her mum thought Malin could get into modelling, too. 'I was about 15, but model agencies kept rejecting me. I'd look at the pictures and say: 'There is obviously something wrong with me,' and I remember her saying: 'Well, maybe you could lose a few pounds.' '
Malin is still discovering the cost of the smorgasbord of cosmetic surgery she had upon exiting Love Island
Enter the diets.
'At 16, I went on an 800-calorie one and lost about a stone and a half. I loved the feeling, but then I craved all the stuff I hadn't had. I remember going to Tesco and it was like a monster had taken over. I bought loads of crisps, chocolate and doughnuts and sat in the car stuffing them in, then crying.'
She would soon learn that spewing up her food would ease those cravings — and keep her thin.
At 18, she became an air stewardess, working for Virgin and Emirates, 'where, in those days, the emphasis was all about being a certain size. They'd weigh you. It was torture. I travelled the world but I don't remember much about it. I just remember being hungry.'
Her media career was also taking off. At the same time, she auditioned for the Saturday night dating show Take Me Out, her first taster of fame — and of trolls.
'I only had about 5,000 followers on Twitter then, but when I looked at the comments afterwards people were talking about my teeth.'
What was wrong with them?
'Nothing! They were fine, but the front two were slightly longer. People were saying 'bunny teeth'. I fixated on it, because you do.
'Then there were comments about my boobs being saggy. I'd stand in the mirror trying to hold them up.'
Unfortunately, she ticked all the boxes for reality TV — right level of bubbly; someone social media users would have opinions on — so when a producer of Take Me Out went on to become involved with Love Island, Malin received a call.
Her mum was cock-a-hoop. 'We went shopping and she bought me all the bikinis. I had body dysmorphia by then, I'm sure. The other girls were frolicking around in their bikinis, so I thought: 'I can do this, too.'
But inside it was agony. If the camera panned to me, I'd be thinking: 'Can they see the rolls on my stomach?' When I came out, I went straight to social media to look at the comments, and it's human nature that you go to the bad ones, so I was reading things about how my boobs were like dog ears. It reinforced all the things I already thought about myself.'
So she didn't find love — but she did find a whole new level of hate for her own body.
Thank goodness, she felt back then, that there were so many cosmetic surgery options on offer.
'I thought: 'If I just look better, I will be more popular. It will help my career. I'll get more followers.' It's mad, obviously. I look back now — and I was beautiful — and think: 'What were you doing?' '
She says that in those days she used anything possible — food, drink, drugs ('It was after Love Island that cocaine got introduced to me. It's that industry') — to 'run away from myself'.
Then there was an abusive relationship with her then partner Tom Kemp, 'which again fed into that feeling of worthlessness I had'. In 2020, he was jailed for ten months at Aylesbury Crown Court after admitting to assault occasioning actual bodily harm. But by then Malin's life was already in freefall.
In 2018, she had become pregnant with baby Consy — named after her mother — but the little girl was born seven weeks prematurely and died in Malin's arms. Suffice to say she will never really recover. To her credit though, she did use both experiences to urge others to seek help and has worked for baby loss charities.
In 2022, Malin gave birth to her second daughter, Xaya. She suffered pre-natal depression and split with Xaya's dad Jared within a few months of the birth.
'I'd like to say that Xaya 'healed' me, but there was still a lot going on,' Malin says.
She's single now. 'And that's fine. All my relationships have followed the same pattern though — with emotionally unavailable men. And part of the issue was with me feeling unloved, unloveable.'
Were her mental health issues reflected in the physical? It's curious that someone who spent so long battling to look a certain way then seemed to rebel. There was a period circa 2020 where Malin's weight ballooned and she went up to a size 16/18. At the time, she believed she was 'doing the body positivity thing'.
'I was focusing on the outer again, just in another way. This girl who was advocating body positivity, dancing around in her underwear, flabbing her stomach around, was suffering inside, even while she was saying: 'I'm so happy.' '
The fact she is now tiny — a size 6 or 8 — suggests that once again she has lurched to an extreme. But she insists this time is different.
'About a year and a half ago, I started to work on myself — my inner self — with therapy. I started to eat healthily, and to exercise, which I'd never done before.'
She cites a vegan collagen supplement, Arella, as a part of the 'key'. 'I became vegan then started to ask myself what I was doing taking all this care with what I put in my body if I was having Botox. So I stopped.'
It's startling to hear her talk about being able to move her face for the first time in her adult life. 'None of these girls can,' she says, referencing not just the new Love Island stars but all the young women who want to be like them.
'I was pulling faces in the mirror like I used to when I was a kid — just like my daughter does now — and I felt this joy, as if the inner child had been discovered again. It's crazy that so many of us have forgotten what that feels like.'
