Dani Dyer has said it was “really rubbish” breaking up with Jack Fincham in the public eye.
The couple, who won Love Island in 2018, announced their split eight months later.
She told the Millennial Love podcast: “It was a part of my life and that’s what I look at it as. I’m not ashamed of that.
“Me and Jack had such a great time together. We was in Love Island, we won Love Island together. So that was a memory and that’s what I just look at it as rather than anything.”
However, she said the scrutiny that their split faced took its toll on her, adding: “It was really rubbish to be honest. It’s just one of them things and you don’t realise when you’ve just come out of Love Island that you’re famous.
“I know it sounds weird because you go in as one person and then you come out and you are under a microscope, you know, you have to watch everything you do and everything you say and stuff.
“And it was really difficult because it is hard, everyone’s going to have an opinion, everyone’s going to assume stuff and everyone’s going to read things.
“I just feel like I had to keep my mouth shut a little bit because the more you say the more it gets twisted, but it is difficult because I’m such a person that speaks about how I’m feeling. I’m very honest.”
Dyer added she was particularly upset by hurtful rumours that surrounded their split, saying: “There was this really horrible rumour with people saying that I planned what I was doing on Love Island that I was going to go on and win the show somehow, which is really difficult, and then I was going to not be with Jack and get with the guy I’m with now.
“I was like, ‘I wish I had my life that figured out to be honest’.”
However, she said that the show turned her life around for the better, saying: “Before Love Island, I didn’t know what I was doing really. Love Island sort of saved me, which is really weird.
“It just made me become who I am. I had my friends, I was having fun, I was working in a pub.
“But that wasn’t what I wanted to do long-term and I was like, do you know what, I’m just going to go on Love Island and have some fun and hope something comes of it.
“But you don’t know what’s going to happen in Love Island. It’s very lucky to go on there and meet someone.”
The full interview is on this week’s episode of Millennial Love.