Zara McDermott has revealed the shocking identity of the trolls targeting her with ‘bullying’ and ‘invasive’ comments.
The Love Island star turned documentary presenter, 27, made her debut on BBC’s Morning Live on Thursday to discuss online trolls or “everyday extremism”.
She spoke to experts about the mindset of these individuals and how they often have day jobs, making the violence of their words even harder to accept.
Zara told viewers in the segment: ‘I’ve done a little research into who the people who troll me are.
‘In fact, I found a woman who is a primary school teacher. I found another man, a middle-aged man, married with small children.
Zara McDermott has revealed the shocking identity of the trolls who have targeted her with ‘bullying’ and ‘invasive’ comments
The Love Island star turned documentary presenter, 27, made her debut on BBC’s Morning Live on Thursday to discuss online trolls or “everyday extremism”.
She spoke to experts about the mindset of these individuals and how they often have day jobs, making the violence of their words even harder to accept.
“And there’s another woman I found who’s actually a nurse.”
Zara concluded: ‘I had this perception in my head that a troll was someone who sat in a dark room, in front of a laptop all day, spewing hateful comments online.
“But in reality, these people are people with normal jobs, with friends, with children.”
Zara has been the subject of ridicule since her appearance on Love Island in 2018 and has experienced peaks when her nude photos were leaked and when she admitted to cheating on her boyfriend Sam Thompson.
In the mini-documentary she laments: “People have commented on everything I post, the things I wear. I’ve even had people investigate my family life and relationships.
“It really seems so invasive and it scares me, scared to post anything nowadays.”
On Instagram, Zara wrote: ‘I wanted my first mini film to be about something close to me and my experience.
‘I learned about a concept called “everyday extremism,” which is that society allows us to become more extreme in our opinions behind the comfort of our phone screens.
Zara said: “I found another man, a middle-aged man, married with young children. And I found another woman who is actually a nurse.”
Zara told viewers in the short segment: “I’ve done some research into who the people are who are harassing me. I actually found a woman who is an elementary school teacher.”
Zara concluded: ‘I had this perception in my head that a troll was someone who sat in a dark room, in front of a laptop all day, spewing hateful comments online…
On Instagram, Zara talked about why she chose this topic for her documentary and what she learned from making it.
‘It’s a very real and scary thing, and I was able to identify some of the anonymous accounts that have trolled me in the past to see who the people behind the screens are.
“I was very surprised to find out who some of them were.”
Zara has presented six documentaries for the BBC on topics ranging from revenge porn to missing persons.
In February 2021, Zara revealed how revenge porn had made her consider suicide after a boy shared nude photos of her at her school when she was just 14.
Revenge pornography, or image-based sexual abuse, is sharing another person’s private sexual material without their consent.
In the BBC3 documentary, she revealed how she felt “rejected, punished and embarrassed” by her teachers and peers, while the boy who sent the image got away “scot-free”.
Zara, who was later victim of the same crime in 2018, said the shame led her to consider taking her own life so she wouldn’t have to go back to school.
The boy had shared the image with his friends and it circulated around the Coopers’ Company and Coborn School in Upminster, Essex, before reaching neighbouring schools at lunchtime the following day.
Zara has been the subject of ridicule since her appearance on Love Island in 2018 and has experienced spikes in violence when her nude photos were leaked and when she admitted to cheating on Sam Thompson (pictured).
In 2020, a troll criticised Zara, a former government adviser to the entertainment industry, by falsely claiming she had dropped to just 38kg.
Zara wrote at the time: ‘Sorry to have to keep explaining myself here, but I definitely do not weigh 37 stone. I’ve learned a lot about posting my exact before and after weight as it can be damaging, and that’s something I would never do now.
Two years earlier, insatiable trolls had insisted that Zara was too big and cruelly called her a “fat whale.”
She told The Sun: ‘To the trolls who posted so many nasty comments about my weight, I want you to know that before I signed on to Love Island, I was almost starving myself and would eat just one bag of carrots a day.’