AMANDA PLATELL: Molly-Mae humiliated Tommy Fury, then played the victim. Trust me, there’s more to this split than meets the eye…

After Molly-Mae Hague announced on Instagram that her five-year relationship with Tommy Fury was over amid rumours of his infidelity, her eight million fans were so upset that some said they “actually cried” over the fairytale’s death.

After all, they have been following all the ups and downs of the couple who have been called the ‘Charles and Diana of the Instagram generation’ since their first kiss on the reality series Love Island in 2019.

Molly concluded her message to her followers with, “Please respect my privacy during this difficult time.”

That’s an understandable request from any woman who’s dealt with the collapse of what she thought would be a lifelong relationship. In similar circumstances, most of us would curl up in a ball and cry with a bottle of wine with our girlfriends, which is why—from the beginning—many of us women were on Team Molly.

Amid widespread rumors that Tommy was a serial cheater, her heartbroken fans have certainly rallied. In their eyes, the odds are stacked against Molly: the victim, Tommy the guilty one.

But I have a nagging doubt. Aren’t calls for privacy a bit of an exaggeration from a young woman who has been invading her own privacy for profit ever since she had sex on camera with bad boy Tommy in the Love Island villa?

She added in her post: “I’ll be back when it feels right.”

Given her grief, I expected that we would not see or hear from Molly for an eternity. I was convinced that she would retreat from the spotlight and spend time at home with her 19-month-old daughter, Bambi.

Well, it turned out to be just a matter of hours before she was back on the road, snapped driving her £200,000 Mercedes to a quiet McDonald’s lunch with friends. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, she wore no make-up and looked very forlorn.

A few days later she braved the outside world again and drove with her mother and friends to the local pub for lunch.

As Molly knows better than anyone, at times like these, she doesn’t need to post on Instagram to stay visible. The mere act of leaving the house gets her photographed and her picture plastered all over the papers and social media – and that’s exactly what happened.

When you’re the 10th most popular influencer in the UK – which she is, according to one poll – you certainly know how to set the agenda. And that’s exactly what she did with those public appearances.

Of course, Tommy didn’t just let this happen. He vehemently denies the allegations of infidelity and even threatens to take legal action.

He’s also trying to gain public sympathy. Shortly after Molly posted her announcement of their split on Instagram, he took to social media to share his utter shock at the end of their relationship and his determination to take care of “our child.”

Of course, Tommy, who is worth an estimated £3million, has five million social media followers to think about and had to capitalise on the split. Just hours before the couple announced their split, he had posted a picture of himself feeding Bambi on his Snapchat account, a photo the Mail later revealed had been taken months earlier.

Sources close to the seemingly devoted father say he was taken by surprise by the shock announcement and has vowed to win Molly back. Tommy was photographed this week walking in the park, tenderly holding Bambi in his muscular arms as he took her out for ice cream with his security guard.

Wearing a tight T-shirt that showed off his undeniably beautiful pecs, the boxer looked gloomy.

According to sources, there had been rifts in the relationship for some time, but on Instagram they continued to keep the story of the romance going with endless posts about being in love.

Unfortunately, during one of his many boxing training trips, Tommy was spotted kissing a Danish girl, which was the last straw for Molly, who had long suspected he was cheating.

In her 2022 autobiography, Molly wrote that her greatest fear was that their love affair would end, just as it had with her parents.

Earlier this year, she shared in a vlog that she was struggling with endometriosis, a condition that causes pelvic pain.

“My sex life became non-existent,” she said. “It just wasn’t part of our relationship,” adding that she and Tommy “hadn’t been intimate for almost a year” after her daughter was born.

In another video, she revealed that when she was pregnant, her sex drive was “through the roof,” but Tommy’s wasn’t. She said he was “really uncomfortable with Bambi being there… it was a bit weird.”

That sounds like too much information for Molly to share. When she told millions of people that she had no sex life, I felt a little sympathy for Tommy. What man wants to tell the world that he has become as celibate as a Trappist monk? It was humiliating.

The problem is that to attract and retain the millions of followers that make you so much money (in Molly’s case, over £6 million) you have to reveal more and more.

Had their relationship been on the rocks for a while, with money as the glue that held them together? Were they, God forbid, all faking for their followers?

The only thing I can say for sure is that the Molly and Tommy show isn’t over. For their 13 million online fans, it probably won’t be for a while. She portrays herself as the betrayed single mother, he as the remorseful, flawed but devoted father desperately fighting back to save their small family.

And Tommy will certainly have to make some adjustments to his forthcoming memoir Lightning Can Strike Twice. His publishers are reportedly in crisis talks following his split, as it includes chapters about his romance with Molly-Mae.

We’ve had Molly And Tommy, The Love Story, now we have Molly And Tommy, The Break-up Heartbreak. Will we get The Reconciliation, with many more episodes?

They will both make millions more, while no doubt begging us to respect their privacy.