Liam O’Dell: Ableist Love Island viewers could break Tasha after the show – producers must protect her mental health

I am genuinely worried for Love Island‘s Tasha Ghouri when she leaves the ITV2 dating show. As she broke down in tears after learning she was in the bottom three again and facing elimination, she questioned if the public hate her. She has dealt with nasty comments from Islanders and her family have issued several statements condemning the ableist abuse directed at Tasha – abuse the model and dancer is yet to see herself.

And it was only September when Tasha talked about “going through a phase of feeling stuck within myself” and “battling demons in my mind”. Add this together with the audism from the public and the fact deaf people are almost twice as likely to experience mental health issues, and I really do fear it will impact Tasha after her time on the show.

Yes, Love Island producers have outlined the post-show therapy offered to contestants, but forgive me for being a little bit sceptical about the support they have offered Tasha, their first deaf Islander. After telling everyone around the fire pit she uses a cochlear implant, her deafness hasn’t been discussed in detail again. The team have failed to specifically condemn the ableism online around Tasha, and when ‘Movie Night’ got underway on Friday and Sunday, no subtitles were provided on the big screen to help Tasha understand what was being said.

At least that’s one way Love Island are authentically representing the deaf experience! But with Tasha’s deafness being nothing more than tokenism for a few articles before the show began, is it any wonder that viewers are now seeing comments from Tasha’s family explaining the challenges she has faced as a deaf person as an attempt to win “sympathy votes”?

In a post to his Instagram on Friday, Tasha’s father Tarek wrote: “Some people have had more knock-backs than many others in their 23 years. It’s not about just being in the danger zone three times.

“Look beyond what you see, people! Imagine your youth being deaf.”

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A post shared by Tasha Amber Ghouri (@tashaghouri)

He explained the impact of concentration fatigue on his daughter in a response to one commenter, adding that it is “mentally draining” trying to understand what other people in the villa are saying.

“Lipreading people whose lips aren’t facing her or whose mouths are covered with bottles, who said what when many are talking. Staying involved in conversation when you can only hear robotic sounds in only one of your ears is mentally draining.

“This leads to tiredness and sometimes tears,” he said.

And I know that feeling all too well. Many of us Deaf folks will have encountered inaccessibility or bullying during our time in education, where a lack of inclusion left us at risk of falling behind in classes or worse, exploitation from our peers. It takes its toll when our deafness isn’t accepted, so it’s hardly surprising that Tasha is perhaps seen as a bit more “sensitive” than your average person when it comes to what others think of her. The concentration fatigue from inaccessible conversations in the villa certainly don’t help matters either.

I’ve written already about the parallels between Love Island reinforcing unrealistic beauty standards, and its viewers requiring Tasha to act in a certain way. When Tasha isn’t even allowed to be sad and emotional in the villa without facing online abuse, have we learned anything from the string of former contestants who experienced crises or worse due to a toxic combination of cyberbullying and a lack of support from ITV?

Love Island must condemn the abuse against Tasha in the strongest possible terms, do everything they can to provide the best aftercare to handle negative social media comments, and give more visibility to her deafness on the show to educate the public – something they should have done right from the beginning.

Photo: ITV.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.