Adam Collard has admitted that his bad-boy image is a mask he hides behind due to a trauma suffered while growing up.
The former Love Island star, 27, is currently appearing on Celebs Go Dating where he got candid about how his past hang-ups had impacted the person that you see today.
“Why is it, that people think you’re this guy,” quizzed dating expert Paul Brunson, referring to Collard’s boyish, unfaithful image. “But, what we see is this smart, ambitious, teddy bear?”
Adding: “Why do we have that divide?”
Collard replied: “I think it’s, my dating life has been on TV. My relationship life, my proper relationship life, has not been on TV.
“But maybe, by default, I go back to that one. It’s my safety net of when I’m going on dates, when I’m going on TV.”
Dr Tara then encouraged the reality TV star to “go back further” to his teenage years.
“I was a little bit overweight in school. Really quiet,” he reflected. “I didn’t really have that much confidence in the way I looked, I didn’t like it,” confessed the gym fanatic.
When Brunston suggested that Collard was the “ugly duckling”, he agreed, saying “100 per cent”.
As photos of him as a child appeared on-screen, Collard continued: “I had a bit of a rough ride in my teenage years. A little bit overweight, wasn’t confident.
“I feel like it’s something that’s definitely affected me. I feel like my defence mechanism is this kind of, confidence, charisma, the kind of f**k boy image, to be honest.”
New Castle-born Collard, who is currently dating co-star Lottie Moss, then admitted people “made fun of” him while he was in school.
“But when you’re that age, that’s the age where it hits you.
“When it got to, like, sixth form, uni level, I’d had a massive body transformation, which then turned into a massive transformation of my confidence levels.
“And since then, I would say that I just went crazy,” he concluded.
