The Times Magazine 43schools to talk to them and share my story.
“Because of what I have gone through, of
course I am going to say, ‘It’s not worth it! It’s
not worth it! If somebody likes you, they are
going to like you regardless of whether or not
you send an image.’ I do think, ‘Why would
you risk putting the autonomy of your body in
somebody else’s hands?’ [But] I do see that we
live in a digital age and that doesn’t just stop
at chatting. People have relationships from
the other side of the world. So I think, just as
we teach teenagers about safe sex, we should
teach them to sext safely. If you are going to
do it, make sure you are anonymous, no face,
nothing identifiable in the picture,” she says.
“I don’t want to shame anybody.”
There is a second part to this story, which
proves McDermott’s point about sexting being
commonplace, and how it can often feel like it
has no consequences.
In 2018, just before she went on Love Island,
she sexted again. This time, she sent three
intimate images of her body to a man she
was dating, whom she thought she could trust.
Unknown to her, he shared them with his
friends. Before long, he dumped her.
Post-Love Island, these images stored on
unknown phones were shared on and on and
on. Her nudes went viral. This time, because
of Love Island, the reach was global rather
than confined to a town in the southeast.
Sharing explicit or intimate images without
consent – known as revenge porn – has only
been illegal since 2015, thanks to Baroness
Morgan, the minister for women and equalities
at the time. She continues to campaign to
ensure “we stop failing women and girls”
as a society. There is now a move for “a
threat to share” also to be made a crime,
which McDermott supports.
Learning McDermott sent nudes again
after her teenage trauma is surprising. Why?
It is a question her boyfriend, Sam Thompson,
asks her in the documentary too. But perhaps
it speaks to a reality. Maybe a better question
to ask is, “Why were they shared?”
McDermott says, “Some guys put a value
on having images like that. That is how they
get valued by their own friendship group.”
The images appeared in Thompson’s
own WhatsApp feed, shared by men he
barely knew. This was before he had even
met McDermott. (It is not uncommon for
schoolboys from multiple institutions to
share nudes sent privately on a WhatsApp
group chat.)
McDermott’s best friend tried to get the
images taken down by appealing to the men
she saw were posting them, but as she says in
the documentary, “It was like trying to put out
a wildfire with a bottle of water.”
The first McDermott knew of it was when
she was evicted from the Love Island villa
and was preparing to fly home. The show’s
PR knocked on her door and broke the news.
“I [had] felt safe that second time,” she
says of sending the pictures to her boyfriend
at the time. “I trusted the guy. He was an
experienced professional and I just didn’t
believe it would happen to me again.”
The end of their relationship shaped her
decision to go on Love Island. “I liked him so
much that I honestly wouldn’t have gone on
it had he not dumped me.”
This time, McDermott says, was not as bad
because in the years between her being 14 and
21, society had finally woken up to the fact
that women exploited in this way must be
supported. “I had the world at my feet,” she
remembers, “and for the first time I was being
referred to as a ‘victim’ in the press.”
Still, she had to face her parents. The shame
was as strong as ever. “I just wanted to die.”
Although its consequences were not as
devastating on her self-esteem – she was older
for one thing and there were so many other
positive developments in her life – McDermott
says that even now, every time she walks into
a room and meets new people she asks herself,
“Have they seen my images?”
So much of the education around sexting is
aimed at girls, but what about boys too? What
of lessons on the morality of sharing a private
image without consent? Do teenage boys even
understand they could be prosecuted? Under
current laws, a person who is found guilty of
sharing sexual or private photographs or
videos without consent can be sentenced to up
to two years in prison or fined, or both. If the
explicit image is of a minor – in other words,
a child under the age of 18 – it could be
considered to be child pornography. A
sentence would involve being placed on the
sex offenders register.
In McDermott’s case, her theory is that, the
second time around, her images were shared
at the time she sent them to her boyfriend.
She assumes that his friends with her nudes
on their phones began sharing them over
and over again once she was “famous”. (The
original man has blocked her number.) While
not everybody is going to appear on a reality
TV show, the message is clear: nudes can
come back to haunt you.
“Some guys would never dream of
doing that,” she says. “My boyfriend has
said he would never do anything like that.
But it happens so much. Guys get desensitisedto it. They forget there is a person behind the
image, a life.”
Some men use sexting as a form of control.
Revenge Porn Helpline data shows there were
more than 2,000 reports of non-consensual
pornography in the period to September last
year, a 22 per cent rise on 2019 (two thirds
were female victims). The same organisation
has published statistics showing that one in
seven young women aged between 18-34 has
experienced threats to share. “Threat to share”
is yet to become illegal.
The film features one woman whose
controlling boyfriend – about to be former
boyfriend – cons her into one last night
and films them having sex. As revenge, he
sends the footage to the woman’s manager,
former colleagues, her mother, sister, auntie
and all his friends. She drove straight to
the police station. He was later sentenced
to four years’ imprisonment for hacking,
stalking and revenge porn.Living in the glare of the reality TV camera
has had its highs and lows.
Following a two-stone weight loss
achieved through exercise and healthy
eating, McDermott has experienced hate
from anonymous online trolls. She has been
accused of being too thin by people, quite
possibly the same people who targeted her for
being “too fat” when she left Love Island.
It’s depressing to think it is not so different
from the hate she got as a 14-year-old in the
playground, only one presumes these trolls do
not have the excuse of being children, and have
the cowardly advantage of being anonymous.
McDermott is thoughtful about these
things. “Dealing with it gets worse as I get
older, because you do question it and think,
‘How can this be allowed?’ ”
She is keen to return to the more serious
path she once so enjoyed during her time
in the civil service, before she got pulled into
full-time fashion influencing – “Much as I still
love all that,” she says.
She has, however, stepped away from
Made in Chelsea for good. “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
documentary can.
“It’s time for me to start putting my
energy into things that could help other
people. Only the other day, I saw a message
that said, ‘I don’t actually like Zara, but I’m
definitely going to watch this documentary.’
And I thought to myself, ‘If people who don’t
even like me are going to watch this, then
that is great.’ ” nWatch Zara McDermott: Revenge Porn on
BBC Three on iPlayer from February 23WHEN HER PICTURES WENT
VIRAL, ‘IT WAS LIKE TRYING
TO PUT OUT A WILDFIRE
WITH A BOTTLE OF WATER’