Amber Gill says her sexuality was ‘painfully obvious’ when re-watching Love Island
Amber Gill has said that it now seems ‘painfully obvious’ that she was gay on Love Island. (Getty Images)
Love Island winner Amber Gill has joked that her sexuality now seems ‘painfully obvious’ when she watches back clips from the reality series.
Gill appeared on Love Island in 2019 and, despite being particularly picky with the boys in the villa, went on to win the show with last-minute bombshell and rugby player Greg O’Shea.
Three years later, and long after she had ended things with O’Shea, Gill shocked fans when she took to Twitter (now X) to casually announce that she had “switched teams.”
Although coming out so nonchalantly was “accidental”, Gill has since shared that she discovered she was a lesbian after her Love Island stint – though she’s now thinking she probably should have realised sooner.
“I watch back on the shows that I’ve been on and I’m like, ‘god, you’re just so gay’,” Gill told queer icons Munroe Bergdorf and Tayce on the latest episode of Queerpiphany.
“If I get sent clips on TikTok, it’s so painfully obvious,” she continued.
“Everyone was just like, ‘Oh, you’re just really picky’, or ‘you’re just this’, or ‘just that’. And I’m like, ‘No, I just like girls.’ But just something wasn’t clicking in my brain, I just wasn’t getting it.”
Gill explained that, contrary to what some Love Island fans believe, she really didn’t realise that she was a lesbian when she signed up for the ITV series. That being said, she’s starting to wonder if the clues were always there, and she had just refused to acknowledge them.
“I think when you’re younger there’s so many other things to be concerned about, like you want to fit in,” said the influencer.
“Like, I’m from Newcastle, I was the only mixed-race person in the year group. And so I was like, ‘I’m not going to add another thing for people to single me out for.’
“So, I think maybe I always did know but I just didn’t want to acknowledge it at all. I think if I hadn’t moved down to London I don’t know how quickly I would have noticed.”
Aside from a little resistance from a certain demographic of Love Island viewers, the reaction to Gill’s coming out has been “overwhelmingly positive,” she says.
“Younger people are coming into my DMs saying how grateful they are that I am in the public eye and I have done it, so they feel more comfortable to tell their friends or family, because of me,” she gushed.
“I get so much satisfaction from people feeling more comfortable in themselves. And if I can be any help then I’ll shout it from the rooftop every day.”
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