Inside Love Island’s Zara McDermott’s reinvention from cheating scandal to Strictly star & rubbing shoulders with Kate
STRUTTING into the Love Island villa, stunning civil servant Zara McDermott effortlessly caused chaos, splitting up a seemingly happy couple.
That was the launch of her TV career five years ago as she stole bad boy Adam Collard, 27, from his partner Rosie Williams, 31 — prompting tears and tantrums in the ITV2 villa.
But now, Zara projects an entirely different image.
The raunchy lingerie posts on social media and romance dramas are gone, replaced by gripping documentaries, a committed relationship and luxury holidays.
Her rebranding has been so successful that even Strictly Come Dancing has snapped her up — ending its ban on reality stars.
And as The Sun told yesterday, Zara is the one all the male professionals want to dance with.
The signing is the final flourish needed for her rebrand, which has enabled her to brush shoulders with the royals despite her less-than-stellar past — including a racial slur and cheating scandals.
Culture and media expert Nick Ede said: “Zara has made the impossible possible by becoming one of the biggest names on TV.
“She has turned her image around from Love Island contestant and reality star to rubbing shoulders with the future Queen and dating Made In Chelsea star Sam Thompson.
“The reason she has been so successful is that Zara doesn’t shy away from the truth, and her legions of fans love her for it.
“We all watched as she was in a toxic relationship with Adam Collard and then walked away with her head held high.
‘I just wanted to die’
“She caught the eye of BBC Three, who knew she could hold her own, and she has made some hard-hitting and culturally relevant documentaries on everything from revenge porn to rape culture.
“These topics are very controversial, but her down-to-earth attitude and genuine interest has made her a star.”
Zara, 26, was born in London to Karen and Alan McDermott, a musician, and grew up in Essex.
She has a younger brother, Brad, who is a budding DJ.
In 2008 she and the family appeared on BBC One show Wanted Down Under as they considered a move to Australia but decided to stay in the UK.
In her introduction on Love Island in 2018, Zara made the bold boast that she helped the Government “make the laws” in her role as policy adviser for the Department of Education.
Yet within hours of her first appearance on TV she had become a villain in the eyes of fans because of her pursuit of Adam.
She made a beeline for him, causing his tenuous relationship with Rosie to fracture after Zara wowed him with a banana split dessert.
Viewers attacked her looks, with many claiming she was a catfish and that she edits her photos to appear thinner.
One fan wrote: “She looks nothing like her Insta pics.”
Others branded her “dull”, which isn’t a great start for a budding TV presenter.
Things went from bad to worse for the newbie reality star as a former partner leaked nude pictures of her which quickly did the rounds on WhatsApp.
Even her current partner Sam Thompson was sent the images before they met.
Her famiy were horrified — and it was the second time she had been subjected to this kind of abuse.
At 14 she was suspended from Coopers’ Company and Coborn secondary school in Upminster, Essex, after sending a boy a nude image which he had sent to all his friends.
Zara only lasted ten days on Love Island — but rather than avoid the revenge porn revelations that had emerged while she was in the villa, she chose to use her story to start a conversation about the issue.
In a BBC3 documentary, she told how she was bullied at school and tried to fit in by sending a nude picture to a boy who told her: “It will make me like you more.”
Zara told TalkRadio: “I was bullied for two years. I lost all my friends. They excluded me. Nothing happened to him.
“It was a really horrible time in my life.
“Between what happened back then and now seven years on, there’s been such a shift, because now I’m seen as the victim, whereas back then I was almost the perpetrator. I was the one in the wrong.”
The second set of explicit images of Zara were leaked when she was 21 by a former partner.
She chose not to press charges but was open about the impact the ordeal had on her.
She told The Times: “I just wanted to die. It’s a violation of another human being’s body for your own gratification.
“It’s not physical, it’s virtual, but it can give similar feelings.”
Instead of ruining her career, it served as a springboard for her to land her first BBC3 documentary in 2021.
But she almost self-sabotaged in the public eye after coming under fire for using the N-word in a now deleted video.
She was singing Chris Brown’s Look At Me Now in a video filmed by then boyfriend Adam when she used the racial slur.
After being called out, Zara attempted to explain her actions, saying: “I am genuinely sorry to have offended anyone, it just upsets me that people would ever think I was being intentionally nasty or ignorant, because I wasn’t.”
Her quick apology prevented it from damaging her reputation any further, but her relationship with Newcastle hunk Adam continually saw her caught in scandals.
He allegedly cheated on her multiple times before the pair called time on their romance.
Adam’s infidelity left her struggling mentally, and she had to see a therapist after discovering he had attempted to seduce a teenager prior to Love Island.
He repeatedly asked the 17-year-old if she was “legal” in vile messages – which Zara only found out about after The Sun revealed his predatory behaviour.
She said: “When I first came out the villa I was in lockdown for two days without a phone, but they got a psych in.
“They got a team in first to debrief you about everything that’s gone on during your time. They were really mindful about the relationship with Adam and told me the stuff that came out about him too.
“It gave me time to process it and talk to a psych about it.”
After spending some time happily single, she found romance with posh boy Sam Thompson from Made In Chelsea, which landed her a spot on the Channel 4 show.
Their relationship gave her a chance to establish herself in a more affluent, better environment and cement an image of being a devoted girlfriend.
It was at this point that she moved away from the classic former Love Islander underwear posts towards a more wholesome image and started focusing on her fitness journey.
But it all came crashing down around her after the pair split following 16 months together due to her infidelity.
Zara had cheated on Sam with music producer Brahim Fouradi while appearing on The X Factor: Celebrity in 2019 alongside Eyal Booker, 28, Samira Mighty, 27, and Wes Nelson, 25.
The shocking revelation produced one of TV’s most humiliating moments, where a sobbing Zara begged Sam to take her back.
The toe-curling Made In Chelsea scenes also revealed that Zara’s infidelity wasn’t a one-time thing, as Sam branded her seedy for “consistently shagging” behind his back.
She also posted a desperate video on Instagram calling him the “love of my life” as she attempted to win him back.
Astonishingly, she was successful, and the pair have been going strong since reigniting their romance in December 2020, enabling her to shed the love-rat image.
Zara opted to step away from reality TV after the public humiliation, saying: “I think I want to start being a little bit less self-centred.
“Reality TV is great, but it’s all about you and what you’re going through.
“I don’t see it bringing a change in the world in the way I hope this (revenge porn) documentary can.”
Sine 2021 she has filmed a number of documentaries for BBC Three including Revenge Porn, Uncovering Rape Culture and Disordered Eating, all based on her own experiences.
Most recently, she filmed Gaia: A Death On Dancing Ledge, which looks at the disappearance and death of Gaia Pope-Sutherland who disappeared in 2017.
She has also gone on to host BBC Three dating series Love In The Flesh and appeared as a supportive girlfriend on Sam’s Channel 4 Documentary Is This ADHD?
Thanks to her rising profile on TV tackling serious issues, she has caught the attention of the Royal Family.
She worked with Kate Middleton on her campaign to highlight the “link between mental health in adulthood and childhood development”, and she met Queen Camilla at a reception in Clarence House to mark the 50th anniversary of the domestic violence charity Refuge.
Media expert Nick added: “What’s even more impressive is her passion for change, and she has been advising the Princess of Wales on her lifetime passion project Shaping Up, which aims to highlight the importance of early years’ development.
“All these roads have led Zara to where she is now — the most sought-after contestant on this year’s series of Strictly.
“With support from Sam, and perhaps even Kate, all eyes will be on her as she takes to the dance floor.”
Hopefully this time her eyes won’t wander to someone else backstage and cause another crisis in her perfect life.