Zara McDermott has told how she faced abuse from strangers in the street after becoming the victim of revenge porn aged 14.
The former Love Island contestant, who is fronting a BBC documentary about the issue, said life became “unbearable” and she considered taking her own life.
McDermott said she took the nude photograph as a means of fitting in at school, where she was being bullied at the time.
She later faced another image being circulated in 2018 while she appeared as a contestant on the ITV reality show Love Island.
McDermott, originally from Essex, told The Sun: “It’s been 10 years of pain. It still affects me to this day and I don’t think it will ever go away. I was so scarred from that experience.”
She said she was called “disgusting” and more by people in the street.
McDermott added: “There were a few occasions when I seriously considered ending everything and I looked into ways I could do it.
“My life was unbearable. The idea of not living any more was better than having to deal with the pain I was going through every day.
“But something stopped me — something told me, ‘This will get better’.”
McDermott has joined campaign group Refuge in pushing for changes in the law regarding revenge porn.
The sharing of intimate images of another person without their consent is a crime, but the threat to share such pictures is not.
