Love Island's Shaughna Phillips racked up over 200,000 likes and was hailed a “role model” for showing off her “real post-baby body” in her underwear while vowing to stop using filters in a recent body positivity post on Instagram. But despite bravely bearing all, Shaughna admits she almost “chickened out” of uploading her now viral post.
“That picture was about three months in the making because I was working up the confidence,” explains Shaughna, 30, as she bounces 11-month daughter, Lucia, on her knee.
“I wrote the caption and sent it to my manager to post it for me. I didn’t go on Instagram because I was nervous about the response or if trolls would say something mean about how I look!”
Though she needn’t have worried; her comments were awash with women thanking her for her “refreshing” stance, and she was even approached by a stranger.
“I was in Next, and someone came up to me and said, ‘Oh my god, I shared your post in my group chat with my friends and we said, good on her – she’s just like us!’ I was overjoyed I’d actually helped someone and thought, ‘Sod what anyone thinks of me!’”
And Shaughna, who found fame in the South African villa in 2020, exudes the same attitude as she poses for our shoot to celebrate her body. The star shares Lucia with ex-boyfriend Billy Webb, who is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence for drug offences, and has since become a single mum. She admits motherhood has completely changed her outlook on body image, diet culture and social media.
She says, “I feel like I’m a mirror for Lucia now, she copies everything I do, and it’s made me think twice about how I am around her. My mum sat on my bed the other day and was talking about how she felt fat, and I said, ‘Mum – I don’t want you saying things like that in front of Lucia’ – I don’t want her knowing that sort of talk, from me included.”
She adds, “It hasn’t been an overnight thing. When I gave birth, I was 6st heavier, and leaving the house terrified me because I wasn’t comfortable in my skin. I nearly signed up to a gym three weeks after having Lucia, a leaflet came through the door and I thought, ‘Shall I do it?’ Then I realised, this is mad! If I let how I look affect me, it’s going to affect Lucia. This summer, she’ll be running around the park, and I’ve decided I don’t want to avoid going out or cover up when it’s 25 degrees – life is way too short to be hating my body.”
Shaughna’s also changed how she uses social media after being horrified when a filter she used automatically slipped on to Lucia’s face.
She says, “Instagram is all smoke and mirrors, and an uneven playing field. Even the most beautiful girls post pictures using filters because they’ve been taught that what we see isn’t good enough. I’m guilty of using filters, even on days I look my absolute best, but I won’t do it anymore. All I’m showing Lucia is that I go on my camera and instantly cover my face because I don’t like what I see. I can look good without editing my pictures to within an inch of their life.”
She adds, “On Instagram, I’d have a filter on, and once the filter slipped onto Lucia’s face, and she’d suddenly have eyelashes and blusher on, it’s ridiculous! I don’t want her ever to look at a photo and not recognise me or her.”
Shaughna is the first to admit her newfound confidence is in contrast to how she felt during Love Island. She struggled with her body image and was convinced her casting was to “tick a box”.
“I was a size 6-8 yet I thought I was the ‘fat girl’ in the villa, it shows the level of body dysmorphia I had. I was consumed with the way I looked, breathing in and getting the right angles. All the other girls looked and felt sexy, but my selling point is that I’m funny, not that I’m going to turn you on,” she laughs. “When they gave me the outfit to wear for the Dirty Dancing challenge, I thought, ‘God must really hate me!’ I felt some girls knew I was insecure and would strut past me. I’d think, ‘How do they have this confidence?’ I look back and feel sorry for myself. You should be your biggest cheerleader and think, ‘You’re the sh*t’ – and I definitely didn’t!”
She adds, “Being thin didn’t bring me happiness. I now know it’s not the be-all and end-all, and there’s freedom in knowing happiness has nothing to do with a certain size.”
And in a bid to look more natural, Shaughna had her lip fillers dissolved two years ago.
“I’m all for people making themselves feel better, but when I see how big my lips were, I looked like an absolute plonker,” she laughs. “It is absolutely an addiction. I thought having your lips done would solve everything. I had them dissolved two years ago because they’d become misshapen and I wanted a clean slate. Since then, I’ve had 1ml put in for volume, but I don’t have plans for more.”
The star was recently thrust back into the limelight after her name was mentioned on Love Island: All Stars, referencing the time she was coupled up with Callum Jones before he dumped her and moved on with Molly Smith.
Despite her heartache back then, Shaughna’s not fazed about being dragged back into the spotlight. She explains, “Everyone is convinced I’m still in counselling over being dumped at Casa Amor and compares me to Molly Smith. I’m sorry, but Molly has the physique of an athlete – there’s no comparison! People say Callum dodged a bullet by leaving me to go for her, which can cut deep. Would I like to look like Molly Smith? F***ing hell, yes. But I don’t, and I won’t lose sleep over it. The comments don’t bother me, it’s just childish.”
And though she’s enjoying her baby bubble, Shaughna says she’s experienced post-partum anxiety and catastrophic thoughts since Lucia was born. She reveals, “I struggled with anxiety so bad, I’m not over it completely. It sounds morbid, but I was convinced something terrible would happen at any moment. If Lucia would cough, I’d say to my mum, ‘Is there fluid on her lungs?’ even now she could have a rash, and I’d think it’s meningitis.
“You hear about postpartum depression, but not much about anxiety. It really hit me, and I thought I’d spiral out of control. I wish I’d enjoyed the first few months more, because I wasted so much of it being down. Now, if I’m having a bad day and I feel overwhelmed, I just know that after a walk, I’ll feel better. I do 10k steps a day and call it my ‘mental health walk’.”
Meanwhile, Shaughna has been open recently about her decision to take Lucia to visit her ex, Billy, in prison, and though she’s been criticised, she understands why others wouldn’t agree with her reasoning. She says, “If someone told me they take their baby into prison to see their parent, I’d probably think, ‘Oh, should you really be doing that?’ If I wasn’t in the same position, I’d judge it too. The criticism doesn’t bother me. My stance would be different if she was older. If Lucia knew where she was going, I wouldn’t take her, but she has no idea.”
Despite his lengthy sentence, Shaughna says Billy will always be part of Lucia’s life. The star, who lost her own father, Eddie, in 2016 to pancreatic cancer, admits his absence weighs heavily on her mind. She explains, “That’s another driving force behind my decision to take her because I know what it’s like to not have your dad around. Billy and I talk daily as he calls to speak to Lucia. She says ‘dada’ and knows who he is. The way I look at it is that he will always be her dad and her family.”
And despite being on her own, Shaughna admits she couldn’t think of anything worse than dating again.
“I think a lot of people think there’s bad blood and animosity between us, but there isn’t. He didn’t do anything to intentionally hurt me so it’s hard for us to not get along – I guess he just hurt himself in the long run as he misses out a lot on Lucia. I couldn’t think of anything worse than going on a date! I don’t know what the future holds for me, but Lucia will have a relationship with her dad.”
She adds, “Being a single mum is tough, and I could sit and crumble and be like, ‘Is this my life’? Things have turned out differently from what I expected, but life goes on. I’m stronger and grateful for what I have!”