Trending 8th October 2021 by Amie Edmonds
Love Island Winner Jack Fincham Opens Up About Attempting Suicide
The Love Island star shared how his mental health took a turn after the show.
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Former Love Island star and winner of the 2018 season of the show, Jack Fincham has revealed how the show affected his life, sharing that he attempted suicide at the end of last year after his “money ran out”.
Speaking on The Steven Sulley Study podcast, Jack opened up about his mental health, and how it was affected in the years after his appearance on the hit reality tv show.
Like many contestants have also said, Jack revealed that he was unprepared for the fame he’d receive once leaving the show, as well as the influx of money and work opportunities. However, Jack explained that this was short-lived and things soon began to spiral out of control for him.
“I think there should be more guidance from them [the show’s producers],” he shared on the podcast, “They should say ‘listen you are going to earn this amount of money – invest it, do something with it’.”
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Jack also said that his career before the show gave him structure, which he had none of when he left the villa. “I’ve got really bad ADHD. I can’t concentrate on anything. I was earning good money doing sales. I was happy. I had a structure.
Speaking about life after the villa, he continued, “There was no structure, I had all this time and all this money on my hands. I wouldn’t say I f***ed it but without that structure, I fell to bits.” Jack then revealed that because of this, he “lost a lot of work through doing silly things.”
“I’m not a bad person but sometimes good people do bad things,” he added, “All of a sudden the phone stopped ringing. Over the last six months, I went into panic mode.”
Continuing, Jack said, “I was depressed. This is only over the last year when the money was running out and work was drying out because of the bad headlines. Rock bottom for me was not earning the money I was earning and just feeling like, at points, I didn’t want to be here. I’ve never said this before. Christmas time I took an overdose mate. I was ready to go. I didn’t want to be here. It’s upsetting to think [about].”
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Since then, Jack shared that he’s been focusing on his mental health and his daughter. “I’ve got to build up trust in myself,” he said, before adding that he has now set up his own stationery company. “That way I know I’ve got to get up Monday to Friday and I’ve got a structure in place.”
Jack is among many other Love Island contestants who spoke openly about how the aftermath of the show affected their mental health, particularly to note the importance of speaking about mental health after the suicides of two former contestants, Mike Thalassitis and Sophie Gradon.