AJ Bunker highlights just how much pressure Love Islanders are under to ‘look perfect’

Many of us assume that Love Island stars face a certain degree of pressure to look “perfect” before entering the villa, but 2021 contestant AJ Bunker has outlined the true extent of that pressure – and what stars will resort to in a bid to feel and look more camera ready.

In a series of new Instagram stories, the 29 year old opens up on how damaging she found the four-week run-up to appearing on the hit show. With roughly 4.2 million people watching each episode, it’s no wonder contestants frequently turn to cosmetic procedures in an attempt to bolster confidence. AJ knows all about the desire to fix “flaws”, having turned to dermal fillers to get ready for her big villa entrance last summer.

“I want to do a story based around my facial filler journey. As some of you may have seen, last year on Love Island I went into the villa with my face filled with dermal filler. The reason for that is because, when I found out about Love Island, I only had four weeks to get ready,” AJ explains.

“In those weeks I overanalysed and tried to find flaws in my face, and in myself, that I thought I had to get rid of before going on TV. One of the flaws that I found was a line across my face, which is just genetics but I thought it looked like a big eye bag,” she adds, pointing to an area of her face just above her cheekbones.

“I got so much of it [dermal filler] put in, I had that hamster cheek look. But, at the time, all I was concentrating on was getting rid of that line. The filler did get rid of it, but I didn’t notice what it had done to the rest of my face.

“It was only when I came out of Love Island that I saw all the trolling and watched myself back and realised how bad it was. I’m nervous to watch all of my episodes even now because I don’t recognise the person on the TV screen.”

Now, AJ can recognise that she may have gone a bit overboard with fillers, and has been seeing Dr Ahmed (@theaestheticsdoctor) to reverse some of the cosmetic work she had done before entering the villa.

“I’ve been really lucky to meet Dr Ahmed, he’s been a godsend. He’s helped me resort to how I was before,” AJ says.

“There was still this issue of the facial line, and it was a catch-22: the dermal fillers were gone, and so was the hamster look, but the line was back. He then introduced me to a product called Ellanse. It helps your body naturally produce collagen, instead of just being a substance used to fill. That’s what I have now.”

We love how open AJ is being about her experience with fillers and the pressure to look perfect. Hopefully future Islanders will learn from her words and understand that they don’t have to bow down to demand.

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