Laura Whitmore admits she judged Love Island contestants before watching show

Laura Whitmore has revealed she used to judge the Love Island contestants before she started watching the reality TV show.

The 36-year-old, who now hosts the popular ITV dating programme, said she hates that she has judged people in the past before getting to know them, but likes that she has the ability to change her mind.

Love Island is due to return to TV screens this summer for its eighth series.

Whitmore told Angela Scanlon on the Thanks A Million podcast: “I mean, before I even watched Love Island, I remember thinking “Ugh, what’s this show!”.

“And then I start watching it. And I became gripped by it. I love that show.

“I’m a fan of the show, been a fan of that show for years, but I 100% judged people who entered that show before I watched it.

“And I think we all judge people. I’ve judged so many people before I got to know them and I hate myself for that, but that’s just what we probably do as humans, but one thing I like about myself is that I had the ability to change my mind and get to know people.”

The TV host added that she now tries to understand the full story about a topic instead of making a judgment off snippets.

“We live in an age where we read headlines, or we look at memes as opposed to read the full article,” she said.

“So for me, I’m trying to read the full article and not just that…and conversation is always open. I love a bit of progressive conversation.

“I love my friends. I don’t agree with them all the time. A lot of them, I don’t agree with them most of the time, but that’s why I love them.

“I don’t want to be surrounded by people who have the exact same opinions of me all the time. Yeah. I don’t want that. Like that makes life boring. It stops me from changing. So I love a good discussion.”

Whitmore explained that her passion for discussing issues had been a part of her from a young age as she featured on debate teams while growing up in Ireland.

She admitted that she would debate in Irish, English and French, despite her not being able to speak French, as she “just liked to argue”.

Whitmore has presented many shows over the years including Survival Of The Fittest and replaced Spice Girl Mel B as a team captain on ITV’s comedy panel game Celebrity Juice in 2020.

She took on the role of Love Island host in 2020 from the late Caroline Flack, who presented the first five series.

The forthcoming series of the dating show is to be set in a new villa in Majorca after the current property near Sant Llorenc des Cardassar, in the east of the Spanish island, has reportedly become unavailable.

Love Island returned to Majorca last year after a summer off due to the pandemic, with Liam Reardon and Millie Court crowned winners.

Listen to Thanks A Million with Angela Scanlon on Apple, Spotify and all podcast providers.