Love Island star Claudia Fogarty has opened up about her struggles with body confidence as she's seen in a photo before her three stone weight loss. The fashion brand owner was one of the bombshell contestants on this year's winter edition of the ITV2 dating show.
Claudia made a dramatic entrance into the South African villa during the saucy dance-off challenge which saw her don a sultry red angel outfit. During her time in the villa, the 28-year-old thought she had found a romantic spark with Casey O'Gorman but the late arrival of Rosie Seabrook turned things on their head.
The daughter of motorcycle racing legend and winner of I'm A Celebrity 2014 winner Carl Fogarty then later left the villa single after she was chosen to leave alongside Keanan Brand.
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Now out of the villa and with the second-ever winter run of Love Island over, Claudia has opened up to fellow Love Island alumni and Social PR founder Scott Thomas about her weight issues. "I feel like I've never ever been a confident person," she said on Scott's Learning As I Go podcast.
"Everyone sees me as this funny, happy, bubbly ball of energy. I'll never show how I'm actually feeling and sometimes I'm feeling very insecure," she added.
Claudia shared on the podcast how she'd reached her heaviest weight after a break-up three years prior to her appearance on this year's first of two series' of Love Island. "I looked in the mirror and thought, 'What are you doing?'" Claudia told Scott. "I was a lot heavier and I didn't feel good in myself. I just let myself go.
"People are always like, 'I never knew you were bigger'. But in pictures I would always hide, I'd stand in the middle and had a way of being in a picture and editing them. I didn't want people to see how big I actually was. It wasn't until I took a picture with no clothes on and literally saw the raw picture of me, that I was like, 'Oh my God'."
"I said, 'I'm sick of feeling bloated and fat'. I'm not saying I was far, because people will look at the pictures and see that I'm not and I was just very curvy, but it was more for my health," she went on to share. "I started crying, she started crying, and even my mum started crying. That day I started my own journey. It's been three years now."
But while in a better place now, Claudia did acknowledge that it's a 'battle'. She added: "It's hard for me just to be one weight. It's constant but it's a lifestyle change. It's a hard thing and I don't think I'll ever come to terms with it. It's a battle."
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