Love Island feud reignited as Mitch takes a savage swipe at Grace in row over ‘publicly humiliating’ text message row
LOVE Island star Mitch Taylor has broken his silence over the text message row as he took a swipe at Grace Jackson.
In a new interview with The Sun, Mitch, 28, denied he fabricated the alleged texts which “exposed” Grace as a “gameplayer”.
The ITV2 contestant first backed All Stars alum Olivia Hawkins, 29, after she claimed she’d seen text messages from Grace, 25, where she appeared to declare she would “do anything to win the show this time.”
Mitch’s name was then unexpectedly dragged into the drama, with fans saying he had “faked the messages” to stir up trouble.
But Mitch, who first appeared on the 2023 series of Love Island, has now vehemently denied his involvement and said he took it as a “compliment” that fans thought he had the power to sway the public vote.
The reality star, who earned himself the nickname ‘Messy Mitch’, has now revealed why he did not take to social media instantly to clear up the confusion.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Mitch said: “Everyone in my DMs and TikTok are saying I made them and gave it to Liv – this is all a big compliment because everyone thinks I’ve somehow sabotaged all of All Stars.
“I’ve been doing Love Island reviews on my Snapchat for my followers to watch.
“After what Liv said, I said to everyone ‘send me the screenshots if you’ve got them and we’ll talk about it’, just me and my followers, that’s all it was.
“Obviously that got blown up into me making them.
“I was sat with my girlfriend and she said take it as a compliment because people think you can edit that well. Everyone thinks I’ve faked them or given it to Liv, it’s not.”
Mitch explained that his name was dragged into it after he posted a Snapchat video which was misconstrued by his followers.
“If you go on my Snapchat you can see on my public profile I’ve got episodes of every single episode, I’ve been reviewing this throughout,” he said.
“I was just being innocent me or messy me – just making episodes.”
It comes after Grace, who remains coupled up with show partner Luca Bish, 25, told how she broke down in tears and didn’t sleep for three nights following Liv’s allegations.
Some fans blamed Mitch for causing Luca and Grace to lose All Stars after Gabby Allen and Casey O’Gorman pipped them to the post.
But the Sheffield lad admitted he’s not interested in sorting things out with them – saying “I’ve done nothing intentional to hurt them”.
He said: “I ain’t spoken to either of them because my intentions wasn’t what happened, so I’m not gonna apologise for something that wasn’t my intentions type of thing.
“So to be fair to like Luke and Grace, I’ve got nothing against him, and they probably don’t like me, but what they’ve done is they’ve come off a big TV show and just read news articles.
“They don’t know the truth.
“A lot of fans were saying that I said that I faked them on my Instagram live. I sat back and went ‘I didn’t’.
“I was sat with my girlfriend and said ‘did I actually say I made these to sabotage them?’ and she said no.
“So I just thought, whatever, let the haters hate and let that one die out naturally.
“If my actions have hurt Grace, obviously I had no intention of doing. I’ve been through it, I don’t want her to go through it.
“I don’t know her personally. It’s hard for me to feel bad because the fans made it up not me.
Mitch also brought up his ongoing feud with Luca.
In recent weeks Mitch took a savage swipe at Luca who claimed the ‘Messy’ star was only offered the show after he turned it down.
Discussing how the text row spiralled, Mitch said: “Don’t get me wrong, I will add this in that in, I’ve got ADHD and I got excited and I was like ‘get him out of here with his fake teeth‘, but it’s just northern banter. I’m not saying his teeth are bad, my girlfriend’s got fake teeth. That could have offended him, probably not, I don’t think Luca even cares.
“When it got to the end of it and I was getting hate, I just wanted to say to people to look back on my public reviews and you’ll see that I backed him. I’ve got no problem against him, Scott’s like the middle man between me and Luca and Scott said if you two didn’t have that beef, you’d be two peas in a pod.
“But because so much has gone on without us talking face-to-face, I called him out this time last year, I’d see him at boxing and I’d fight him. It’s literally nothing personal towards either of them.”
SHOW SCANDAL
In the biggest Love Island scandal to date, Olivia told her co-stars: “Erm, so I’ve seen text messages of Grace just saying to someone that she would do whatever it takes to win the show this time.”
Grace looked horrified at Olivia’s comment, before she yelled: “Wait, what? From who?”
Olivia continued: “So I was just a bit confused,” as Grace screamed: “From who?”
Liv reinforced her stance in the final when grilled by host Maya about the receipts.
Liv was then backed by Samie Elishi who agreed “everyone” from Love Island All Stars had seen the screenshots.
And Reuben Collins, who dated Grace when she first appeared on the show in series 11, was one of many to back her in the fight, declaring on Instagram the accusation was: “FAKE NEWS!!!”
Yet Mitch previously shared what appears to be messages from Grace to a mystery pal.
Commenting on news Grace was heading to South Africa as a bombshell, the mystery person wrote: “You’re my winner regardless.”
The post Grace replying: “Aww thank you babe.
“I will win this time. I’ll do anything.”
At the time, a rep for Grace told The Sun: “Grace has said several times she hasn’t sent messages of this nature.”
PODCAST REVEAL
Last week, Grace returned to social media following the fracas.
She posted a smiling shot to her Instagram page accompanied by a sweet message to fans.
Fresh out of South Africa, she and Luca went on Made In Chelsea’s Sophie Habboo and co-host Melisa Tattam’s podcast, Wednesdays, and made some shocking revelations about their time in the villa.
Talking of the alleged screenshots, Grace said: “Whatever she was trying to do there completely backfired. I felt so humiliated, like publicly humiliated.
“I was sat there trying to defend myself, everybody around the fire pit was nodding like ‘yeah we’ve seen the screenshots’.
“I just felt so embarrassed and I felt because that’s not in my character.”
“All I could do was defend myself with words. I didn’t have my phone, I didn’t have a clue what was going on on the outside.
“Then I’m saying who’s fabricated these screenshots. Who’s got it in for me.”
Luca then revealed how Grace ‘burst into tears’ over the incident, saying: “It wasn’t on camera but at dinner, they keep girls and boys separate I could see she was upset.
“I went over and they (producers) were like please, leave Grace alone and then she burst into tears.
Luca also confessed how Grace had many sleepless nights in the villa because of the text scandal, he said: “She didn’t sleep for three nights.”