Love Island star Lucie Donlan has received death threats after her feud with former contestant Yewande Biala escalated into a race row.
The surfer, 22, has been bombarded with messages online accusing her of racism following the discovery of old Instagram comments by social media site Reddit in which she claimed Yewande, 25, ‘bullied’ her during the 2019 series.
Scientist Yewande hit back on Monday evening, accusing the blonde of refusing to pronounce her name correctly on the show and co-star Amber Gill also weighed in, branding Lucie a ‘bitch and a liar’ for her allegations.
‘Incredibly scary’: Love Island star Lucie Donlan has received death threats after her feud with former contestant Yewande Biala escalated into a race row
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Lucie is determined to put an end to the feud and is adamant her inability to pronounce Yewande’s name in a challenge was an ‘accident.’
Lucie said: ‘These are really old comments dug up purely to incite a row between two females.
‘In this day and age and with everything going on in the world, we should all be sticking together not attacking each other.
‘I’ve been sent death threats which are incredibly scary as you can imagine.
‘These are old comments’: Lucie has been bombarded with hateful messages accusing her of racism following the discovery of old comments in which she claimed Yewande bullied her
‘I said on the show I had trouble pronouncing Yewande’s name, it’s just what I’m like.
‘And I asked if I could use a shortened abbreviated version of her name instead as a term of endearment – there’s nothing sinister to it.
‘I regret how just a few old comments sent 18 months ago has snowballed like this and got out of hand, and drummed up some needless negativity.
‘Can we all just move on from this please?’
Former co-stars: Lucie and Yewande appeared on Love Island together in 2019 alongside Amy Hart and winner Amber Gill, who have both commented in defence of Yewande this week
‘Now you wanna say I bullied you’: Yewande hit back on Monday, accusing Lucie of refusing to pronounce her name correctly on the show and said she is in fact the one to blame
The Instagram messages unearthed by Reddit were from sent shortly after the completion of the series in which Lucie and Yewande appeared.
They contained comments from Lucie that she was ‘not bothered’ about the opinion of the Irish star after she allegedly branded her boring on the ITV2 show.
A fan had asked Lucie ‘how do you feel about Yewande saying you’re a horrible person?’
The Cornwall-born model replied: ‘She’s always bullied me.
‘I’m not bothered by her opinion… makes her look bad. Not sure where she said that though!’
Yewande hit back with accusations of her own, claiming Lucie refused to use her name in the villa as it was ‘too hard to pronounce.’
Taking to Twitter, Yewande wrote: ‘You refused to call me by my name because it was too ‘hard to pronounce’ now you wanna say I bullied you !! Bullied.’
Co-star Amber, who won the series of the show, backed up Yewande, saying : ‘Na when she said can I call you ‘Y’ I said lol no you can’t can I just call you ‘her’ you were peaceful in that exchange It was me with the vim.’
‘There’s so much you don’t see’: Amy defended Yewande on Monday, calling her friend a ‘beautiful and respectful queen’ and claimed a lot more has gone on behind the scenes
Underneath a post of UKGossipTV’s Instagram, which detailed the back and forth between the parties, Amber wrote: ‘Cut me a f**king break man…
‘You know that b***h lying, Yewande is one of the quietist [motherf**kers] I ever met AND it’s almost two years later and we are not over it it man it’s boring’.
Another Islander in the series Amy Hart also jumped to Yewande’s defence, writing on Twitter: ‘I bit my tongue today, tomorrow may be different. My final thought of the evening, this beautiful,respectful QUEEN has sat on this for almost two years…
‘We haven’t spoken about it publicly because it was Yewande’s story to tell. I remember dates, times, locations of every conversation in that villa. There’s so much you don’t see.’
‘I’m yelling, I don’t care’: Love Island 2019 winner Amber spoke out on the feud, tweeting on Monday that she refuses to stay quiet if she ‘sees something false’ about a friend