As soon as I got my phone back, I spoke to my family and all my friends – I wanted to call everyone at the same time – and finally talking to them again was amazing.
Looking at Twitter was not so fun. For days, #Money-Mae was trending because people thought I was just there for the £50,000 prize money. Now, it’s all a bit of a joke: my nickname with my friends and family is ‘Money-Mae’. But back then, it was a whole new world to me; seeing myself trending on Twitter was a hard thing to wrap my head around. I couldn’t believe people even knew my name, let alone that they were writing about me.
Still, that was more shocking to me than offensive – there were worse things they could have said! Obviously, people commenting about my looks was quite hard to swallow, because I had never had to deal with anybody really attacking me over that before. But the only really hard thing to read was some of the stuff about me and Tommy: I didn’t like that some people were saying they thought our relationship was fake, because I knew that it was very real.
And from the get-go, I’ve always dealt with all that quite well, I’d say. At the time, the press was actually saying that I had security because of how bad the hate was online. I didn’t at all – I was with my family and with Tommy and I was totally fine. And while some of it was hard to see when I first came out of the villa, because everything else was so amazing – I was seeing my family and so many great things were happening – I felt it all balanced out.
Anyway, I had other things to be thinking about. That time of my life, straight out of the show, is such a blur that I can barely remember what happened day-to-day. I’d do anything to get to relive those weeks because they were just so insane. My whole life had changed overnight, and suddenly so many people knew who I was – you can’t prepare someone for that. It was just wild.
And I had a lot to do. When I flew back to England, Fran came with my family to the airport. I was really sceptical and a bit annoyed with my family that they’d done this: ‘You can’t decide who my manager is – it just doesn’t work like that!’ Then I met Fran and I just fell in love with her instantly, like they had. We all went to a hotel in Milton Keynes – why Milton Keynes? I don’t know! – and she had actually created this folder for me to look at over the next week of all the different brand deals that had come in and how my year could look if I took certain deals, how it might look if I took others. It just felt right, so I told her, ‘Yeah, you’ve got the job!’
And that was it. I don’t think anyone really realises how huge a part of my life Fran is now. Everything I do happens because of me, but she helps me make things happen. Fran’s like the business part of my brain – she’s very smart with that kind of thing.
Soon after getting back, I ended up staying in a hotel in London, the May Fair, for about three weeks, where I was really busy with business meetings with fashion brands. Meanwhile, Fran took control of dealing with the media. She has incredible relationships with a lot of journalists, so I didn’t really have to worry about that side of things much because I had her. Everything I’d ever dreamt of was just coming true.
When I wasn’t working, Tommy met my family properly, including coming to my mum’s house for a curry. Mum loved him from the get-go – she always jokes that she fancies him: ‘Tommy, you know you should be with me instead of Molly, stop pretending.’ That’s just my mum’s sense of humour! But both my parents adore Tommy. He’s the dream guy to take home, so I knew that they were going to love him. And with his career as a boxer, no one’s ever going to trouble me if he’s next to me. He’s a very protective person and very loyal and kind, and he butters my mum up the right way.
Of course, I met Tommy’s parents, too. They live in Salford, so I met them when we moved up to my flat in Manchester. Now, I see them basically every other day, whereas when Tommy sees my parents it’s more of a special occasion because I don’t get the chance to go home that often because of my busy schedule.
One of the first things Tommy and I did as a couple, in those first few weeks in London, was to go out to TGI Friday’s and the cinema, because we both love that – and we were really certain about wanting a date night. I just wanted to do something normal with him, and he felt the same. It’s nice that we did that because I look back now, and I’ll always remember doing it. We planned to go to the TGI’s in Leicester Square then to the Vue cinema just across the way to see a film.
At the restaurant, we got absolutely hounded – it was not a smart thing to do because it was huge and busy, one of the most central TGI restaurants in London. Everyone was looking over at us, coming over to our table, trying to get pictures. We weren’t really bothered because it was a new world – ‘Of course you can have a picture’ – and it was just a privilege that anyone was asking us. But we were both thinking, What on earth? That level of attention’s never really changed for us, especially because Tommy is tall; whenever we go out anywhere, people notice him straight away! Plus, we have two very different audiences, which means we’re on the radar of a lot of people when we’re out together. Both Tommy’s boxing fans and my Instagram fans will come over, which means double the people, in a way.
The cinema was fine because nobody really noticed us in the dark. But during the film, I had a massive nosebleed. That was something that kept happening during those first few weeks – the first time I was having my hair done after leaving the show, I had another nosebleed. I don’t normally suffer from them, so that was weird. After that dinner and cinema date, Fran said to me, ‘Molly, you can’t just be doing things like that. You can’t just be going off to TGI Friday’s anymore. We’d need to get you security.’ I was beginning to realise that things really weren’t just the same. I couldn’t just go about and expect to fly under the radar and never have to deal with paparazzi, so I just had to try to find my feet a bit with it.
Looking back, the nosebleeds were a sign of the underlying anxiety I was feeling because so much was going on, and my head was so scrambled – they were most definitely from me just trying to take everything in, and the stress I felt around everything that was happening. I was learning that even things you want to happen – that you’re excited about – can feel stressful when they do. As I’ve always felt, the good can come with a bit of bad, and vice versa.
As for Tommy through all this? He was just cool as a cucumber; nothing could really bother him! I could lean on him if I was finding anything hard – with the media or whatever. He’s got a very different approach to it to me, in that he doesn’t care at all what people say about him. He’s just not bothered. So, when I find things hard, he’s really good at calming me down. He always levels me out and makes me realise, actually, I don’t need to be worried about that stuff. Sometimes he’s almost a bit too cool about it and then sometimes I’m a bit too dramatic – so together we find that nice happy medium, where we level each other out.
About a week after coming out of the show, I hit 3 million followers on Instagram, while I reached 500,000 subscribers on YouTube. That was a really clear reminder to me that I just wanted to do what I was doing before, but now with these new followers. And that’s exactly what I went back to, almost straight away. I’d had a bit of a break when I first came out – in fact, everyone thought Tommy and I had broken up. Then I posted a picture of him and me at the May Fair, before the finale of Love Island’s sister show, Aftersun.
Things had been crazy busy, which explained why I hadn’t posted until then – but it was also strategic in a way, because the silence got everyone talking: ‘What’s going on?!’ When we posted this picture, it felt like boom! It did exactly what I wanted it to do. Everyone was talking about it and sharing it. It went viral, with 1.3 million likes as of now, which is insane. It’s still probably the most-liked picture on my Instagram feed.
But more importantly, getting back to what I loved doing helped me through that crazy time, and soon I was feeling a lot more myself. From then on, I started posting every day again, and basically have done ever since.
Without a doubt, Love Island is how a lot of people got to know me. My time in the villa was an eight-week period of my life where I met my boyfriend and had a really exciting summer. But I don’t feel like that defines me. Everyone from the show deals with things differently and goes on to take different paths. It’s all a learning experience.
Personally, I’ve not really spoken much about my experience since then, because I’ve tended to focus more on what I’m doing in the present. I’ve always wanted to be known for the things that I’ve done with fashion brands and hair companies and my own tanning company.
People misinterpret what I’ve done as ‘She thinks she’s better than everyone.’ That’s very much a misconception. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t be here today – or, at least, I wouldn’t be exactly where I am – without Love Island. I totally acknowledge that.
But since the show, I’ve made choices and taken risks that have made my platform what it is today. It’s uniquely mine, and I’m so proud of that.
Even before the show, I was giving my all to make my dreams come true. I was trying to build my following. I was positioning myself and planning for the future. Who’s to say what that would have come to? I guess I’ll never know!