Love Island’s Niall Aslam says he found the reality show "overwhelming" as an autistic contestant.
The tattooed hunk first went public about having Asperger Syndrome following his decision to quit the dating show after nine days and he admits that the pressure of being filmed all day was just too much for him.
Appearing on ‘Loose Women’, he said; "I just thought, you live once, go for it. It looks like a laugh on TV so I’ll give it a crack. I didn’t take it into consideration how much it was going to affect me when I actually got on there. For the first few days it was great. The banter was cracking, the girls all looked nice and I was having a whale of a time. But then, it just kind of got really overwhelming for me. The thing about me, I need time by myself. I started kind of segregating myself from the group a bit."
Asperger Syndrome (AS) is a developmental disorder – with an unknown cause – that is characterised by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication.
Niall also told the panel, which included Stacey Solomon, he kept his condition hidden when he was growing up because he was "embarrassed" about it and "didn’t want to be labelled" as different by his school peers.
He recalled: "I’d go to learning support because of what I’ve got, but I’d be telling my mates I was naughty, I’m getting kicked out just to make myself look better. I didn’t want to be labelled, I guess I was embarrassed about it, I’ll be honest."
Niall is "glad" to have spoken openly about suffering from autism and says he felt like he "had no other choice" because he didn’t want to lie about why he really left the show.
Love Island’s Niall Aslam was overwhelmed on dating show
