Tasha Ghouri Hits Back At ‘Ableist’ Comments After Love Island Fans Ask About Her Mental Health
18 August 2022, 16:44
Love Island star Tasha Ghouri talks about the ableist comments she's received for being deaf
Love Island star Tasha Ghouri said she came out of the villa to see ableist comments had been made about her on the show.
Tasha Ghouri said there’s still ‘a long way to go’ in changing people’s stereotypes about the deaf community, after leaving Love Island with boyfriend Andrew Le Page to find a lot of ableist comments about her.
When she first entered the villa, Tasha told all her co-stars about what she calls her ‘superpower’ after she was born completely deaf.
She wears a cochlear implant which helps her to hear, but also relies heavily on lip-reading and analysing people’s body language in conversations.
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In her first YouTube video since she’s returned from Love Island, Tasha hit back at the cruel comments, addressing trolls who said she should be ‘acting a certain way’.
Addressing the emotion she experienced during the show, Tasha said: “The show, the villa is so hard. The intensity is just heightened; you don’t have any contact with the outside world, it can really get to you quite a lot. I think that’s why I got so emotional in there. I’m not gonna be sorry for how it happened, I’m not normally an emotional person but trust me its just a whole different world in there.”
Tasha went on to say how she plans on using her new platform – she now has over 1.3 million followers – adding there’s still work to be done to champion the deaf community.
She said: “I’m going to be working on pushing the deaf community more. I think coming out it really did show me there’s a lot of work still to be done. Going into the show I really wanted to show people that just because you’ve got a superpower it doesn’t define you, it’s just part of something special that you have.”
The dancer then addressed the negative comments she’s seen: “I’ve seen some comments where people were saying that I should act a certain way because I wear an implant because I’m deaf is stereotypical [sic]. There’s no certain way a deaf person should act, ever. It’s just part of who you are. I’m human just like anyone else.
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“You can have an opinion, a negative opinion, but never bring someone’s superpower into it because that’s ableism and there’s a lot of that. A lot of that. It goes to show there’s a long way to go and I still need to use my voice for the greater good, that’s what I’ve always used my platform for. Even before the show..”
Tasha said she has a thick skin, but not everyone will be able to brush the comments off so easily.
She went on: “It’s a bit disappointing really because it’s never nice to take it that far. Luckily, I have a thick skin to be like, ‘ok, you have your opinion but I’m going to focus on a positive one’ and that gives me that fuel to do even better.
“But not everyone has a thick skin and comments like that are ok. So yeh we’ve still got a long way to go, I’m still gonna keep pushing for my community.”
Tasha added that she’s received a lot of concern about her mental health since leaving the show after she had a rollercoaster experience in the villa, but assured her followers she ‘couldn’t be happier’.
She said: “There’s been quite a lot of questions about if I’m ok, if my mental health’s ok, but I could not be any happier right now, I’m so grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had so far and my family, Andrew, my friends have been so supportive.”
Tasha has become eBay’s new pre-loved ambassador since leaving the show and has plans with boyfriend Andrew to find a place of their own.
