How Big Brother Josie Gibson winner came to suicidal Love Island star’s rescue

Love Island’s Malin Andersson says she was contemplating ending her own life when her baby was in intensive care at Great Ormond Street Hospital earlier this year.

Malin’s child Consy was born seven weeks premature with a congenital heart defect, and died in January this year.

“When she passed away, I locked myself away for about three weeks,” she said, speaking to Kate on the Yahoo podcast White Wine Question Time. “I just drank wine every night, I didn’t want to speak to anybody.

“[When Consy was in ICU] I was too scared to touch her, because of the wires and everything. And I was slowly collecting tablets by the way, because I was thinking, ‘If she’s going to go, f***, I’m going too.’ Because what else have I got to live for here? I haven’t got a family to go back to.”

It was then that Big Brother winner Josie Gibson reached out via social media to offer support. Although the two had never met in real-life, Josie – who gave birth to son Reggie in September last year – had been in touch with Malin on Instagram, sharing pregnancy advice.

“I cried so much for you,” Josie told Malin on the podcast episode, where they met in real life for the first time. “Because we were sharing our stories the whole way through, and then... I didn’t sleep for two nights. I was so upset for you.”

Not knowing what to say, Josie began gathering video messages of support from the likes of Stevo The Madman, Kym Marsh, Charlotte Crosby, Ferne McCann, and others, to send to Malin on Instagram.

“And so there were just video messages from random people, celebrities, just offering words of courage, support,” Malin recalled. “And they actually made such a difference. She was just giving me support that was very much needed at the time. And no one else really knew what to say to me. But she just put herself out there.”

Malin has turned her loss into a positive and plans to launch a self-help app that brings together advice from a team of counselling experts.

“I was sitting there one day and thought, right: get up, wake up. And let’s do something,” Malin said. “Don’t try and hide your emotions. Don’t try and just run away and numb your pain with other things. Ride out the pain. Because then you’ll heal yourself. When you learn to actually feel your emotion, you’ll start to heal.”

White Wine Question Time will be released on Friday morning, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Malin and Josie also discussed their time on reality TV, why they’ve learnt to love the social media trolls, and how being frank has gotten them in hot water.

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