Few parents would be keen to hear about – let alone see – their children’s sexual exploits. So pity the handful of mums and dads watching the amorous antics of their offspring on ITV2’s Love Island, which reaches its much anticipated finale tomorrow night.
Over the past eight weeks, they have reacted with horror as their children leapt into bed with strangers and were even, in the show’s parlance, ‘mugged off’ by others.
The group of attractive twenty-somethings have – in the quest for love, fame and the £50,000 prize – flashed acres of gym-honed and cosmetically enhanced flesh in a Majorcan villa to a nightly audience of more than three million.
Gym honed: Contestants Dani Dyer, left, and Georgia Steel, right
There is little doubt that the show, now in its fourth series, has made for titillating viewing.
But for the islanders’ cringing parents, it has been nothing less than excruciating to watch every detail of their children’s romances on television, as they explained to The Mail on Sunday.
While the favourites to win, Essex barmaid Dani Dyer, 22, the daughter of TV star Danny Dyer, and her boyfriend Jack Fincham, 26, claim to have stayed resolutely chaste, the same cannot be said for every contestant.
Famous Dad: Love Island’s Dani Dyer with dad Danny and mum Joanna Mas
Joanna and Lee Brown, for example, had to shield their eyes from their daughter’s steamy encounters. Ellie, 20, proved a controversial character on the show.
‘We had a chat with her before she went on there to talk through the sex thing,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘She promised us she wouldn’t do anything to embarrass us.
‘Of course we believed her but that didn’t stop us from having a blanket that we would use to cover our eyes every time there was a bit we might not really want to see.
‘When Ellie was kissing someone her dad found it strange. He would know it was time to get the blanket ready and over his head. He wouldn’t come out until it was safe.’
‘ROLLER COASTER’: Sharon Steel with daughter Georgia
Ellie, a business development manager, was an instant hit with the villa’s boys, dating A&E doctor Alex George and kissing model Eyal Booker before finding what she described as ‘true love’ with millionaire socialite Charlie Brake, 23.
‘I knew that they were going to have to share beds, and while a lot of it was kissing and cuddling, it isn’t the normal thing you would expect to see your children doing,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘The experience was bizarre from start to finish.’
Sharon Steel, the mother of 20-year-old Georgia, a drama student, seems even more traumatised than her daughter, the subject of a notable and much discussed ‘dumping’.
Describing the past two months of intimate on-screen antics as an ‘emotional roller coaster’, she said all she could think about was ‘the stigma of sex, sex, and more sex.’
‘It all started when Georgia told me she had been approached,’ said Mrs Steel. ‘I told her, “You’ve got to be joking. No way, you are not going in.” I kept thinking, “Oh my God, no, they have sex on there.”
‘I wanted her to graduate from drama school, not go on Love Island. The thought of that was horrible. I made Georgia promise me she wouldn’t have sex.’
Mrs Steel, from Thirsk in North Yorkshire, revealed Georgia’s farmer father insisted on watching the show on his own, and had not told work colleagues his daughter would be appearing on it.
‘He was very worried – he found Georgia being on Love Island very hard,’ she said. ‘He’d watch it on his own. We’ve got two televisions in our house and we’d watch it separately – he insisted on that.
‘It was difficult for him to accept. It’s probably the father/daughter relationship thing. He didn’t want to see his daughter in bed with a man. That’s tough for any parent.’
PLAYFUL: Sam carries Georgia during one of the Love Island ‘challenges’
He may well have been left shocked, then, after insinuations on the show that Georgia had got overly amorous with her partner, 25-year-old gym owner Sam Bird, in the bathroom. There was additional controversy over a kiss with semi-professional London footballer Jack Fowler, 22. At the time, Jack was in a couple with another contestant, 29-year-old air hostess Laura Anderson, and Georgia was branded a liar for denying the smooch took place, despite evidence to the contrary.
Mrs Steel said: ‘One of the worst moments for me was when all of the girls went against her and called her a liar. That was bullying. I was so upset, I paced around my living room, up and down past the coffee table, and I was crying.
AMOROUS: Sam Bird and Georgia share a passionate kiss during filming
Joanna and Lee Brown, had to shield their eyes from daughter Ellie’s steamy encounters in the villa
‘I was so angry so I decided that I had to call ITV to check that my little girl was OK. They assured me that she was which helped.’
But it was heartbreak, as well as love, which caused additional torment. Earlier in the series, Georgia was devastated when her first pairing, with sports journalist Josh Denzel, 26, ended after he coupled up with a new islander, 23-year-old make-up artist Kaz Crossley.
‘When she split up with Josh, my heart was in my mouth, my heart was breaking,’ said Mrs Steel. ‘I kept thinking, “How is she going to deal with this without her mum?”
‘I was emotionally drained when all of that was going on. Seeing my daughter on television in that state meant I couldn’t sleep at all.
‘I lost half a stone because I couldn’t eat. It broke my heart that she had been dumped and I couldn’t be there to give her a hug. She was so far away, I couldn’t get to her.’
The strain proved no different for Sam Bird’s father, Steve. ‘When Sam got into bed with a girl, I was like, “Hmm, I think it’s time to put a pillow in front of my face,’ admits Mr Bird, from Norwich.
‘I would keep it there for a few seconds before I would ask if it was OK to watch. The reality is that, in real life, you would never watch your children doing that, would you? It’s something people have asked me about. It has definitely been an unusual experience.’
When fellow contestant Kendall Rae-Knight, a 26-year-old shoe shop worker from Blackpool, was dumped by Geordie love rat Adam Collard in the first week of the series, Kendall’s mother also cried.
Jane Prior, a former model, found it hard to watch her daughter’s heart get broken by the 22-year-old personal trainer – but she suffered in silence after failing to tell friends that Kendall was on the show.
‘I didn’t tell anyone. No one knew at work. I didn’t want to get involved in it with other people. There’s a stigma attached to the show.’
But unlike many of the other contestants’ parents, Jane says watching Kendall have sex ‘wouldn’t have bothered’ her. Instead, it was the frustration of not being able to comfort her daughter which she found most painful.
‘There were tears from me when she cried,’ she said. ‘In that moment all you want to do is get hold of your child. It is the most awful thing.’
The nation may mourn Love Island when it draws to a close tomorrow. But for one small group of people, there is sure to be a collective sigh of relief.