Love Island’s Harrison Solomon has hit back against Women’s Aid’s statement about him.
Last week, the charity against women’s violence released a statement condemning the male behaviour on Love Island, particularly Harrison’s mistreatment of Toni Laites and Lauren Wood. Women’s Aid described his actions as being full of “gaslighting”, “emotional manipulation” and “disrespect”.
A few days after the statement was released, Lauren was dumped from the Love Island villa, and Harrison decided to leave with her.
Now, upon his return home to the UK, Harrison has spoken out for the first time about the backlash against him.
Speaking to MailOnline, the 22-year-old stated that he disagrees with Women’s Aid’s thoughts.
“I have seen the backlash and it's hard to digest. I would disagree with a lot of it in terms of my respect for women, I do respect women. The worst has been from Women's Aid,” Harrison began.
“I know myself and the girls on the show too. Toni said she knows I'm not a bad person, just went about situations in the wrong way, but the Women's Aid statement wasn't nice... it's not nice coming out of the villa to my mum upset by that, so I would say that's been the hardest,” he continued.
“To the women I have hurt, I am obviously sorry. I got it wrong and the back and forth between the two connections caused more harm than I ever intended. It wasn't ever an ego thing. I am not proud of how I handled things and I'm not going to make excuses,” Harrison noted, adding that he wants “space to grow from it”.
Elsewhere, Harrison admitted that he has mixed feelings about choosing to have sex with Lauren multiple times during the show, while he was still in a love triangle with Toni.
“We know that cameras are on us 24/7 and we always knew there was a possibility of the sex being shown but there was no conversation from the producers prior,” he explained.
“In the moment, I didn't regret it, even now because it was very natural, but I regret the day after where I expressed feelings for Toni. I should have waited until I had clarity on the situation,” Harrison added.
