The Love Island star been open about her ordeals with plastic surgery, childhood trauma, abusive relationships and heartbreaking loss over the years, but as she confidently bares all on our photo shoot, Malin Andersson admits she’s finally in a “good place” after years of self-loathing and hatred.
And the star, who found fame on Love Island 2016, says she’s now on a mission to warn others about the dangers of going under the knife by speaking about her own botched surgery. Malin has had a boob uplift, several rounds of liposuction in 2017, as well as “endless” injectables and filler, and readily admits she was in a dark place after leaving Love Island and succumbed to appealing offers of free surgery.
“There was no thinking behind any of my procedures – I was just offered them for free,” Malin, 31, tells Closer.
“After Love Island I was invited by a surgery company in Turkey – who’ve now folded, because people died on their operating table – to have free lipo and a breast uplift which was worth £10k. Then another company said, ‘Get your teeth done for free’, so I flew out and did it all together in two weeks. There was no chat about whether I really needed any it. I was just constantly inundated with offers of enhancements.”
The star, who is mum to two-year-old daughter, Xaya, with ex-boyfriend Jared, has openly talked about being plagued with eating disorders and binge eating throughout her teens. Malin also candidly shares that she was the victim of a sexual assault just before entering the villa and, with so much to contend with, her self-esteem plummeted after rising to fame.
She says, “The 24-year-old Malin who came out of Love Island should have been living the life of Riley, but I was suffering inside. I grew up in a house full of shouting, my mum was severely depressed and had mental health issues, and food became an emotional way for me to deal with any issue. Being in the limelight aggravated my eating disorder and body dysmorphia and led me to surgery. In the villa, I didn’t like my stomach and whenever the cameras would turn to me, I’d sit upright the whole time so you couldn’t see any rolls. I was also raped before I went into the villa, I kept it all in and nearly didn’t do the show. I was running on adrenalin and holding onto so much trauma, there was a lot going on internally.”
She adds, “By the time I left, I had so many insecurities and was getting trolled. They called me ‘the brown one’ and said I had saggy, dog-eared boobs. The girls who go into Love Island these days have no clue what they’re about to get into. When I look back, I feel sorry for the girl I used to be.”
And as Malin came to realise, her surgery would have disastrous consequences. She says, “My nipples were messed up and leaked with pus. I flew back to have them corrected, but the same thing happened again, and the second time I was out there, I got extra lipo.”
Horrifyingly, on one occasion she spotted something poking out of her nipple, adding, “Five years post-surgery, a piece of blue thread was coming out my nipple, I thought, ‘What the hell is that?’ I visited a surgeon in the UK, and he was stunned. He kept pulling the blue thread, it was so long. It turned out to be a stitch that was left in my boob, and now my body was rejecting it. It should never have been in there!”
Malin also reveals she went “overboard” with injectables in her twenties.
“I had lip filler before Love Island, and that became a quick addiction, to the point where I was getting 2ml in my lips every fortnight. It becomes addictive when you’re constantly seeing something you’re not happy with, or if you’re seeing something that looks different to what others see. I didn’t like the way my lips looked, I thought bigger was better, so I had them done repeatedly. After a while, the filler residue migrated around my lips and looked swollen. I’ve had most of it removed now.”
Malin reveals how facial injectables also left her with a bulging vein on her forehead. She reveals, “It was just dumb of me. I got it done on my forehead, but now I have a massive vein there, it looks like a Harry Potter scar. I’ll never have filler, and I’ve given up Botox. Now I just use natural skincare and I swear by Arella Beauty collagen.”
And despite being vocal about her experiences, she shockingly reveals she was propositioned with another round of surgery. She explains, “A few months ago, I got offered the same procedures again, only this time they were willing to pay me £10k on top! I thought, ‘Do you even know what I talk about online?’ They must have been getting desperate. I’m a completely different person. I thought surgery would make me happy, but it never did.”
She adds, “It’s dangerous, and if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t have had anything done. Look at my stomach,” she gestures. “It’s got lumps from lipo, and my skin is stretched. My t*ts are down here and my nipples look like planets. Now I can accept it all, and say, ‘You’re beautiful’, because I’ve done the inner work on myself.”
In a further bid to change her life, Malin openly admits she sought treatment from a rehab clinic in January after an alcohol and drugs battle. After facing so many personal tragedies, her dependency on alcohol spiralled as she masked her pain.
The star tragically lost her mum, Consy-Gloria, to stomach cancer in 2017, and then was rocked to the core when her daughter, Consy, named after her mum, died at four weeks old in 2019 from complications after being born prematurely. In 2020, her ex, Consy’s father Thomas Kemp, was jailed for beating Malin and was even accused of assaulting her while she was six months pregnant, causing her to fall on her back. Malin says the events of recent years finally took their toll.
“My relationship with alcohol was really bad, it was my coping mechanism,” she says. “I could go months without it, but then if I was drinking, I couldn’t just have one, I’d think, ‘Let’s have 20’. People underestimate how easy it is to have an alcohol problem, because unlike other drugs it’s legal and accessible. It’s a depressant and the biggest gateway to drugs. Whenever Xaya would be at her dad’s, I’d get p*ssed, sniff cocaine and stay up for two days, just to bury the pain.”
Malin explains there was no other option but to check herself into a facility for three weeks, costing £12k. “Rehab was the answer,” she says. “I was an alcoholic – people think that means you’re necking vodka at 6am, but it’s someone who has an uncontrollable attachment to alcohol. It’d be like, why couldn’t I be around wine and have one, why do I have to drink 10 glasses and get a bag of cocaine? It was a repeated cycle, and I’d just cry at night wondering why. I was online giving talks about being strong, but nobody knew because I was so good at masking it. Finally, I reached rock bottom and said, ‘I surrender’, I couldn’t do it anymore.”
She adds, “My driving force was Xaya, she’s a maniac, entertaining and changed my life for the better. At rehab I met a great therapist, who helped me unpack all of my traumas from childhood up to now. For the first time, I had space for my thoughts and time to process everything. I don’t have a taste for alcohol now, nor do I want to run away from my thoughts.”
Editing her social circle has also made a difference. Malin says, “I don’t attract the same p*ss-taking friends now. All of them dropped off as soon as I gave up the booze. My hobbies are very different, I practise yoga, meditate and connect to myself. I needed to go through it all to have this whole new perspective on life.”
And despite being plagued by a “string of sh*t men and abusive relationships”, Malin remains optimistic about her future, revealing she’d love to settle down. Though she’s taken a break from dating and even physical intimacy, she’s ready to meet someone new.
“I’ve been celibate for two years,” she reveals. “It’s empowering, because I know when I do have sex it’ll be with someone I’m in love with. Intimacy is a sacred thing, and I don’t want just anyone to take it from me. I’m open to dating again. I don’t think I’ve ever been in real, pure love, because I’m forever attracting men who aren’t emotionally available. I want someone who’s calm, peaceful, in touch with their emotions and knows what real love is.”
And on whether she’d love to add to her family, Malin beams, “Hell yeah, I want more kids! I’d love a little boy. Motherhood is magical and changed my life for the better, and I’d love to experience that all over again!”