Former Love Island star Sherif Lanre has confirmed the real reason he was booted out of the villa.
Quashing rumours it was because he pleasured himself in the hot tub, the 20-year-old confirmed it was because of an insensitive joke he made about fellow Love Islander Molly-Mae after accidentally hurting her.
Speaking to The Sun, he said he was play fighting with the social influencer when the incident happened.
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He told the publication in an interview: “I was kicked out of the villa because I was play fighting with Molly-Mae and joking around with Tommy and Molly-Mae collectively.
“We were throwing karate kicks at each other, fake karate kicks, and one of them accidentally caught her in the groin, very lightly. Although shocked, she wasn’t injured, and I went on to use some pretty foul language to describe the incident.”
Revealing what happened in the lead up to his departure, Sherif said he was woken up before the other contestants by the crew and taken to the villa’s beach hut.
There, he was handed an “instant red card” by the directors, who said it was out of their hands as it was a “decision above them”.
He also said it was “correct” of ITV to handle the situation the way they did and apologised for the language he used, as he hadn’t realised “how insulting it is to women”.
The Sun claimed he dropped the C-bomb, when he described his kick on Molly-Mae as a “[bleep]-punt”.
In the interview, Sherif went on to say that he does think unconscious racism and sexism could have factored into ITV’s decision to give him the boot.
He claimed that his backside was “slapped” by female contestants “more than once”, but it “wasn’t treated in the same way” and those who did it were not punished.
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ED! contacted ITV for comment and the broadcaster responded with the following statement:
“Sherif fully accepted and agreed that he broke the rules and that he should leave. We have a duty of care towards all of the Islanders and as such we would not make public the details of the breach of code.”
Of the accusation of racism and sexism, the spokesperson said: “We take any instance of inappropriate behaviour very seriously and we speak to all of the islanders to remind them of what we condone to be acceptable behaviour during their time on the show.
“We would strongly refute any accusation of racism. All of the Islanders are treated fairly and in accordance with our duty of care. I would like this to be made abundantly clear.”
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