Zara McDermott reveals the surprising identity of trolls who target her with ‘bullying’ and ‘invasive’ comments

Zara McDermott has revealed the surprising identities of the trolls who targeted her with ‘bullying’ and ‘intrusive’ comments.

The 27-year-old Love Island star, turned documentary presenter, made her debut on BBC’s Morning Live on Thursday to talk about online trolls or “everyday extremism”.

She spoke to experts about the mentality of these individuals and the fact that they often have mundane jobs, which makes it even more difficult to accept their violent language.

Zara told viewers in the segment: ‘I’ve been looking into the people who troll me.

‘I actually found a woman who is an elementary school teacher. I found another man, he is a middle-aged man, he is married with young children.

The 27-year-old Love Island star, who is now a documentary presenter, made her debut on BBC’s Morning Live on Thursday to talk about online trolls or ‘everyday extremism’

She spoke to experts about the mentality of these individuals and how they often have day jobs, making their violent words even harder to accept.

“And I found another woman who is a nurse.”

Zara concluded: ‘I felt like a troll was someone who sat in a dark room all day, behind a laptop, posting hateful comments online.

‘But actually they are people with a normal job, with friends, with children.’

Zara has been trolled since her time on Love Island in 2018. Her biggest pet peeves were when her nude photos were leaked and when she admitted cheating on her boyfriend Sam Thompson.

She complained in the mini-documentary: ‘People have been commenting on everything I post, the things I wear. There are even people who are digging into my family life and my relationships.

“It just feels so intrusive and it makes me scared, scared to post anything these days.”

Zara wrote on Instagram: ‘I wanted my first mini film to be about something close to me and my experiences.

‘I learned about a concept called ‘everyday extremism’, where society allows us to become more extreme in our beliefs from the comfort of our phone screens.

Zara said, ‘I found another man, he’s a middle-aged man, he’s married with young children. And there’s another woman I found who’s actually a nurse’

Zara told viewers in the short segment: ‘I did some research on the people who troll me. I even found one woman who is an elementary school teacher.’

Zara concluded: ‘I felt like a troll was someone who would sit in a dark room all day, behind a laptop, and post hateful comments online…

On Instagram, Zara shared why she chose this topic for her documentary and what she learned while making it

“It’s very real and scary. I’ve been able to identify a number of anonymous accounts that have trolled me in the past, so I can see who the people are behind the scenes.

“I was shocked when I found out who some of them were.”

Zara has presented six documentaries for the BBC on subjects ranging from revenge porn to missing persons.

In February 2021, Zara revealed that revenge porn had made her think about suicide, after a boy shared naked photos of her at school when she was just 14.

Revenge porn – or image-based sexual abuse – is the sharing of private, sexual material of another person without their consent.

In the BBC3 documentary, she told how she felt “shunned, punished and ashamed” by her teachers and classmates, while the boy who sent the photo “walked free”.

Zara, who was again a victim of the same abuse in 2018, said the shame drove her to commit suicide so she could avoid school.

The boy shared the image with friends and it circulated around the Coopers’ Company and Coborn School in Upminster, Essex, before reaching neighbouring schools around lunchtime the next day.

Zara has been trolled since her time on Love Island in 2018, reaching heights when her nude photos were leaked and when she admitted cheating on Sam Thompson (pictured)

In 2020, a troll criticized Zara, who was previously a government advisor before entering showbiz, by falsely claiming she had lost weight to just 80 pounds.

Zara wrote at the time: ‘Sorry to keep explaining myself here but I am definitely not 7 stone 7lbs. I have learned a lot about posting my exact before and after weight as it can be damaging and it is something I would never do again.

Two years earlier, insatiable internet trolls had insisted that Zara was too big, cruelly calling her a “fat whale”.

She told The Sun: ‘To the trolls who have made so many nasty comments about my weight, I would like to say that I nearly starved myself before I signed on to Love Island and only ate a bag of carrots a day.’