Love Island's Eyal Booker defends the show and says aftercare WAS there if he needed it – but says contestant's families need support too

EYAL Booker says he did receive enough aftercare coming off of reality television show Love Island, but believes that contestant's families need support too. 

After the sudden death of Love Island stars Mike Thalassitis and Sophie Gradon, the popular ITV show will now offer therapy, social media training and financial management advice after the show was criticised for 'zero aftercare.'

Ex Love Island contests, including Jonny Mitchell have slammed the show for their lack of support and care after they leave the villa.

However, the 23-year old has said that he had the support if he needed it, and his early rise to fame with band EverYoung helped him cope with the pressures of living in the spot light.

When asked if reality shows are currently doing enough he said: "I can really only talk from personal experience and for me, Love Island's door was always open for me.

"I haven’t felt like I was in a difficult place, but I knew that there were people at the other end of the phone if that’s who I wanted to call.

"Luckily I’ve always had a brilliant, incredible support network of family and friends around me who really do have my best interests at heart and know me sometimes better than I know myself."

He added that after his family received death threats they didn't get any support, but because they didn't ask for it. However, if they had asked for it, the support probably would have been there.

The reality star went on to say that support for families is just as important as for the contestants on the show.

"It’s new to everyone, it's new to your family, it’s new to the person that’s in it, so families are just as important, but no two people are the same; no two families are the same, so everyone takes it differently."

His success with pop band EverYoung in 2012 before his stint on Love Island helped him prepare for what to expect after leaving the villa.

"If anything, I think being in a band, even though we had very small success, we had fans that would follow us, it kind of prepared me for what was to come after Love Island.

"It’s funny, I found myself in situations where I felt like I was back in the band, and I was meeting fans and signing autographs so having selfies with people.

"I learnt how to handle a situation like that when I was in the band, so it didn’t feel like it was this whole new thing for me [after Love Island], it was helpful."

The fitness fanatic recently denied that Love Island couples have to sign a 6 month contract after leaving the show and has been hitting the gym to as fit as he possible can.

"It really does clear your mind and allow yourself to focus and get back on track and I think with the pressures of life, and just the media, its just a nice outlet to release some of that pent up frustration and get fit," he said.

The star went on to say that his fitness puts him in an incredible head space and wants to be in the best physical and mental shape of his life.

He added: "I think there’s a difference between looking ascetically fit and actually being really super fit. I’ve always worked to look ascetically fit, whereas now I want to look ascetically fit, but also know that if Everest was in front of me and I wanted to climb it, then I could just casually climb it."

The model who recently completed the London Half Marathon is about to star in Channel 5's reality television show Celebs on The Ranch alongside Towie's Courtney Green, Bobby Norris, Love Island's Georgia Steel, Made in Chelsea's Mark-Francis Vandelli, Victoria Baker-Harber, Louie Spence, Jenny Pwell, Real Housewives of Cheshire's Tanya Bardsley and The Wanted's Siva Kaneswaran.

Eyal previously told The Sun Online: "It was such an incredible experience, we were sent to the middle of nowhere in Arizona, which was somewhere where I've never been before, and so that in itself was amazing just to be able to travel there.

"The concept is learning to be cowboys and cowgirls, which is something none of us have really done before and only ever really seen on Wild West TV shows."

He struck up an unexpected friendship with Bobby Norris, 32 and Siva Kaneswaran, 30 after sharing a room with the pair on the show and completed varied tasks such as riding horses, shooting guns, dealing with cattle and clearing out manure, but essentially "going back to basics."

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