Living in Manchester, I was starting to get recognised a bit, typically in a restaurant or on a night out at the sort of places my followers would go. It felt unusual for people to recognise me, but then it made me feel happy that I had that very loyal, very engaged audience. My Instagram following had grown to about 150k, and I’d been living in Manchester for about a month – not long – when I went to London to audition for a show … Love Island.
Even before I went for that audition, I knew I was going to be on the show that year, weird as that sounds. I had this overwhelming feeling that I’d already got the job. That wasn’t a new thing either: from about 16, whenever Love Island was on TV, I always used to say to my family, ‘I’ll be on that show one day.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ they’d say – but I just had this strange feeling that I was going to go on it.
At the time, it wasn’t something that I was particularly aspiring to do or really desired. It was more something that, because of my influencing work, I could see myself heading towards – like I knew that was the route I’d take. Someone might say, ‘No, no, you got the job because you got lucky.’ But I do believe that, like my Manchester flat, I manifested it. I just believed wholeheartedly that I was going on that show.
Again, with manifesting, you have to envision yourself doing the things you want to be doing already and then work hard to make that vision a reality. Before I even went on the show, I saw myself being a successful businesswoman. And I just think the minute you start seeing yourself as that person and believing that you’re going to get there, your focus and drive to reach that goal just become so much sharper. That attitude changes everything. For example, if you walk into an interview with the confidence and belief that you’ve already got the job, you’re so much more likely to get it.
The minute you believe that you’re already in that job you’re interviewing for, or you already have that role within your workplace that you want – the moment you start believing, things happen for you.
That’s not to say I didn’t face any setbacks in getting there …
The funny thing is, I had actually auditioned for Love Island the previous year, when I had just turned 18 and was still living with my mum. I sent off an application form and the production team asked me to come in for an audition in London. I wore red trousers and a black top – I remember it so clearly – and sat in a room with about 30 or 40 other girls, all of us waiting to be called in one by one.
In my interview, I could tell I wasn’t being engaging: ‘Oh, I’m Molly, I’m 18 …’ I was really quiet and, looking back, just too young and not ready. I knew that I hadn’t got a place on the show. I thought, There’s not a chance. But my dad kept saying to me, ‘Maybe next year, maybe you’ll get it next year.’
And actually, I’m really glad I didn’t get it that first time. The next year, it felt like it was the right moment. Second time around, it all unfolded so differently: I was sat at the hairdresser’s – I was with my hairstylist, Emily (@emilyrosemonkhair), who I still use now and who works with Beauty Works – when I saw the DM on Instagram from one of the casting team, saying, ‘We’d love you to come in for an audition.’ I thought, Oh, wow! I don’t think I was even on their radar from the previous year; it was what I’d recently been up to on social media that had brought me to their attention.
I remember saying, ‘I really think this is going to be my year. I think I’m going to go on the show.’ I was already believing that I was in the show and just had a really positive attitude about it.
From there it all sort of naturally fell into place. In January 2019, I went to a studio in London – they later told me I was their first audition for the series. This time around, it was a completely different audition experience. I went alone, whereas the previous year I’d taken my mum and sister. And again, I just had this overwhelming feeling of I’m going to be on this show.
I could tell from the way the interviewer was talking to me, and the way I was talking to her … It was just right. I felt like a different girl to the one who’d been in that first audition: I dressed differently, I did my make-up differently, my hair was bleach blonde (blonder than ever!) by this point – but most of all, I had so much more confidence and I knew what to say. Since my last audition, I’d moved away from home, worked on my business, lived that little bit more. I spoke about my past experiences with guys and was trying to make the crew laugh, thinking, If I actually just woo them here, I could get this.
In the final interview I wore a bright pink blazer with a high-necked black top and black trousers underneath, so I walked in and said, ‘I’ve come dressed as a liquorice allsort today!’ And they were laughing their heads off. I thought, I’ve definitely got this! I just had this good feeling.
Honestly, I don’t know where my confidence comes from! I’ve always had it. Not in a cocky way, not in a big-headed way – it’s never been like that. It’s more, as I say, that I believe that when you want something enough, you’ll get it. I went into my Love Island audition as someone that was already on the show, and I just had so much self-belief that I think it simply fell into place. Again, that’s what I think of when I talk about manifestation: that confidence will carry you through.
And then … the show rang me and said I wasn’t going to be part of their original line-up. They wanted me, but as a bombshell – which meant that I’d be joining the villa as a late arrival, to shake things up. I didn’t want to do it. My friends Steph and Ellie had both been on the show themselves, and told me things to look out for, one of them being that bombshells didn’t always make it onto the show as there were always quite a few of them on standby.
The TV team was trying to persuade me otherwise, telling me I’d be the first bombshell to go in, and I thought, Nah. I was pretty sceptical about it. Things were going well for me business-wise: my Instagram was growing rapidly and organically. I knew that I could go on the show and potentially damage that – if you say something wrong, you could ruin your reputation. So, it was a lot to think about. A lot of people were saying to me, ‘You don’t really need it. You can do this without it.’
I listened to all that … and decided that I’d do it anyway!
I didn’t think I would find love on the show. Don’t get me wrong, I was obviously hopeful that I would, but I did not go on there relying on definitely finding a man. I was also open to the exciting opportunity of spending my summer away – and I’ve been quite open about this on my YouTube. I knew that being on a TV show like Love Island could raise my profile, and I was focusing on building my audience, so eventually I decided that going on there felt like a risk worth taking. After all, there are definitely easier ways to find a boyfriend! But I could see the potential that going on the show held for me, in terms of giving me another platform.
After all, I’d already seen how my Instagram had benefitted from me having a presence on YouTube. As I mentioned, my Instagram audience was really engaged. What that means is this: when you have a following on Instagram, the typical percentage of your audience that should be engaging with your posts – liking them, for example – is around 10 per cent. So, when I had 150,000 followers, I should have been getting around 15,000 likes on each post. Instead, I was averaging 30,000, which means I had 20 per cent engagement – huge! At the time, I had around 30,000 subscribers to my YouTube channel, and I knew that was driving my higher engagement – because people knew the person behind the Instagram pictures.
So, if YouTube could do that … what would a TV show do?
I decided to take it. Annoyingly, I had to decide before I went on the show if I wanted to take out another six months on my Manchester flat, and I had decided to do that, hoping that I’d make enough money when I came out to pay for it. Then on May 25, the day before my birthday, I flew out to Majorca, where the show was filmed. Spending my birthday abroad seemed to have become a bit of a pattern for me!
I turned 20 in a remote town up a mountain, surrounded by goats, hidden away from the press ahead of going into the villa you see on TV.
I couldn’t call my mum or my sister and, to be honest, I was all over the place. I spent two weeks there in total, then I went on the show as the first bombshell … and it all happened from there. Which all goes to prove how what starts as a ‘no’ can lead somewhere very different in the end.
I’ll always remember walking into the villa in a little black dress, in a clip that went a bit viral and still circulates now. That was a really powerful moment for me – one of the best moments of my life, in fact; I love watching it back – because I felt like I was just so ready for it. And I was excited! I knew my life was never going to be the same after I walked into that villa.
This was the start of a brand-new chapter – I just didn’t know what it was going to bring.