Love Island is back for a 12th season, and it comes with the usual parading of bodies in bikinis by ambitious Islanders primed to become super-influencers. It’s an experience Liberty Poole knows only too well having gone on the well-trodden Love Island journey in 2021 before returning to All Stars last year. She’s amassed 1.3 million followers on Instagram, landed lucrative brand deals and cemented her place as a social media star.
But what no one can be prepared for is the pressure to fit in with a particular body aesthetic. Liberty, 25, says, ‘You see models with big followings on Instagram and you feel you have to be pretty to get likes. I would edit my pictures before the show and even though I was a size six to eight, I didn’t think I was slim enough and I would shrink my waist until I looked like an alien. I wanted to lose a stone in four weeks, I’d want a nose job. I would put all this pressure on myself.’
The cruel jibes she received didn’t stay exclusively online; at an airport she was once told by a stag do that she’d ‘let herself go’ after Love Island and that she was a ‘catfish’. Rather than letting it impact her, Liberty decided to be her authentic self and has made it her mission to help others to do the same.
She says, ‘We see Kylie Jenner’s transformation and think, “Why don’t we all try that?” but then we’re all trying to look like one Instagram aesthetic and that’s impossible. Don’t try to look like someone else. It’s simply about accepting everyone as they are.
‘As I’ve got older, I’ve accepted my nose and my big boobs – that’s what makes me, me. I’ve come such a long way, I’ll put on a bikini, and I'm quite happy walking on the beach.’
Last month she posted a video of herself in a bikini on Instagram to instil the self belief most of us struggle with. She captioned it with, ‘Confidence is the best thing you can wear. Stretch marks and cellulite are normal and don’t make you less worthy.’
As Closer chats to Liberty over video while she’s visiting family in Abu Dhabi, it’s clear that she’s not without her hang-ups. She starts by apologising for how she looks without make-up on, despite looking beautiful. But what’s refreshing is how Liberty fights past those insecurities.
She says, ‘Instead of worrying about meeting certain beauty standards, I put more importance on me as a person on the inside. I put on a bikini and accept I look the way I look. I have a balanced lifestyle and I’ll never be stick thin. I’ve always had boobs and a bum. We’ve just got to accept the skin we’re born into.’
Liberty’s confidence wasn’t a quick journey, and the popularity of Love Island put her image under intense scrutiny. She admits she wasn’t popular with the men on the show, and had the humiliation of Jake Cornish, who she was coupled up with, say he ‘didn’t 100% want to rip her clothes off’.
She says, ‘Watching my partner say he wasn’t attracted to me dug up some old insecurities. In All Stars I was pied three times in the pie challenge. I was overlooked and I could never understand why because I feel like I have a nice personality.
‘I was classed as the “chubby girl” on Love Island, but I like the way I look. I was a lot more conscious the first time I did the show. I trained hard to get into the best shape. Saying that, I was still eating McDonald’s, which my trainer didn’t know about – but he will do now!
‘The second time I went on Love Island, I thought, “Well, I am what I am, you’re going to be trolled whatever you do.”’
While lots of celebrities have been raising concern around rapid weight loss, with speculation rife that weight loss injections such as Ozempic are responsible, Liberty, who had planned to study medicine after school taking science A-levels, takes the same stoic approach to weight loss medication.
She says, ‘I don’t judge anyone for their life choices, but I would never risk my health just to be slimmer. Taking medications like Ozempic when you don’t medically need it is putting your health at risk to some extent.’
It’s clear Liberty has done a lot of self-work and she’s also found love with boyfriend Joshua Raybould, who she’s been dating since last year.
She says, ‘My boyfriend taught me such a deeper meaning to love. I’m getting glass-eyed, I grew up without a male role model so I’ve never really seen what a relationship looked like. Finding love is about friendship, trust, respect – and obviously I fancy him too!'
With such a powerful personality and quest to instil confidence in all of us, Liberty ends by saying, ‘Body positivity isn’t about promoting an unhealthy way of living; it’s the opposite – it’s knowing that, whatever size you are, you’re happy with how you are.’