A few weeks ago I walked in to an animal centre in Swansea to write an article about their café. It was a lovely few hours away from the laptop and I was very lucky to see lots of dogs and have a nice slice of cake.
All the while I was there I was looking at one of the staff and couldn’t shake off the ‘why do I recognise you?’feeling. That’s when it hit me, I had seen him having sex on TV.
Before you get any ideas, I don’t mean one of those naughty channels on the telly, I’m talking Love Island on prime time ITV. The man in front of me was Tom Powell from the second season of Love Island.
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You may remember Tom from the show, as he stood out from the rest of the boys with his thick Welsh accent. He was also known for coupling up with the late Sophie Gradon on the series, and they were together for six months after the show, too.
Season two of Love Island was the best, they used to be able to have a few tinnies, smoke on TV and we saw almost all of what the Islanders were getting up to beneath the sheets.
Or in the case of Tom and Sophie, what they got up to in the wardrobe (aka wardrobe-gate). If you know you know…. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter.
Now, Tom looks vastly different to his time on the show. He is still extremely tanned, but now he has far more tattoos and is absolutely massive after years of weightlifting.
In an interview with the former islander, at Llys Nini Animal Rescue Centre, he opened up about everything, and I mean everything. He delved in to his time before, during and after Love Island, including the passing of his ex-girlfriend and his steroid use.
He told me how he grew up in Margam in Port Talbot, and lived in the same house for 25 years. Before the show he had been a personal trainer, worked seasons in Zante, managed a bar in Greece and later did personal security for the cast of Geordie Shore, where he was scouted to be on what was a fairly unknown TV series at the time.
He said: “One of the producers messaged me, saying, ‘Hey, Tom I think you’d be great for this series that we’ve got, would you like to fill out an application?’
“So I said, Yeah, of course, you know, why not. Filled out the application, and within 20 minutes he was asking me to come to London for the interview. By the time I had the interview, left London to get back on the train, they rang me and said ‘you’re going in two weeks’.”
When asked how he prepared to go on the show he joked: ” I got in the gym for two weeks.”
Tom who is now 33, but was only 24 when competing on the dating series said that he had no regrets going on the show and that he had no bad moments of being on the series. He did go on to explain how post Love Island was an extremely difficult time, following the loss of Sophie Gradon.
Despite claims that the show were not doing enough for their participants at the time, Tom explained: “Everyone had their own issues. Love Island looked after us mentally and physically massively after the show. They genuinely did look after us. I had a phone call off the show’s psychiatrist every week after I got kicked out.
“You have to have an interview before you go in to make sure you’re mentally stable, etc. and this was season two. So, this just didn’t come up in later seasons, this has always been.
“Then afterwards, every week, for about eight weeks, she rang me, and then it went down to once every month, and then once every six months.”
He then said that they even phoned him after the passing of Sophie. He discovered that she had passed away whilst waking up to hundreds of text messages, mainly from the media asking for comments.
Tom explained: “I literally got up at like 5am checked on my phone, and I had 100 text messages, 1000 DMS, being like, ‘Oh my god, why are you not saying anything about Sophie’s death?’. That’s how I found out.”
Sophie, who was 32-years-old, was found at her home in Ponteland, Northumberland, by her boyfriend and his brother in June 2018 and was found to have committed suicide at an inquest into her death.
After her passing, Tom later spoke to his past Love Island co-star, Scott Thomas, and also Sophie’s parents, but ultimately he decided to stay quiet to process his grief.
He said: “I didn’t go to social media. I didn’t post anything for about two days, and the amount of abuse I got because I didn’t do it, I didn’t want to post.
“Quite a couple of news agents [sic] rang me, asking me for a story, and I’m like, ‘I don’t want to talk right now. Sorry, I don’t know how to process it right now. Just give me a few days’.
“They decided to publish that I made no comment, so that kind of made things worse, and I did have quite a lot of negative comments in my inbox, which was hard, but not as hard as what had happened, I suppose.”
The pair were still in contact at the time of Sophie’s death, as they became close friends after their break-up, and they spoke three months before she died.
He said: “We were together for six months after the show, but I think we both knew that it wasn’t gonna last. We were a little bit different personality-wise but you shared an experience with someone that you can’t explain to anyone else, so you have that bond, that connection, because it’s a totally different experience to anybody else.”
After appearing on Love Island, Tom went on to buy a club in Zante with the money he had earned from the show.
“We had three solid years of business. Fantastic as a business and made a great profit, but then COVID hit, and we royally got screwed. Unfortunately, we lost the club in the third year of COVID.”
When asked if he would be back home in Wales had that not happened he said, “I’m not sure I was getting towards the end of my nightclub career, because of my age.”
He explained that the drinking culture out in Zante was extremely prominent and that if he had 10 beers in one night that it was “a quiet night”.
He said: “I’m very, very fitness orientated, so I was coming towards the end of loving that to be honest. So if it hadn’t happened, then it would have happened by now.”
Now, he concentrates on his physical health and works for a nutritional supplement business. However, following his stint on Love Island, he went down the wrong path of fitness and the use of steroids which led to physical and psychological side effects, including a need for major surgery to remove breast tissue. Read more on that here.
After living in Greece, Leeds and London, Tom has returned to Wales and has said that he can’t see him moving away from his hometown any time soon.
He said: “I’ve always been a guy that’s not been in love with Wales. I’ve always been not anti Wales, but thought the world is a bigger place, until maybe five years ago. I’ve realised I’m not leaving Wales again, except for holidays obviously.”
He explained that it as only when he moved away that he realised how much he loved not only living in Wales, but living in a small, close-knit town like Port Talbot.
And after a life of owning clubs abroad and businesses in London, Tom’s return to Port Talbot also saw him take on a very different career. He is now a fundraising co-ordinator for Llys Nini, a RSPCA animal rescue centre in Swansea.
He said he joined the team because: “Llys Nini has always been part of my life, I’ve rescued dogs here since I was a little boy.
“There’s no better place to work. It’s quite an honour to work somewhere which you’ve seen grow over the years and to help those rescue animals find their homes is lovely.”
The fundraiser even confessed that he worked at the centre for just three weeks before rescuing his first dog.
He rescued ‘Hollie the collie’, as he calls her after she was born on a farm and adopted by someone else originally. However the family couldn’t handle how high energy she was, so then she came back to the centre and the day they brought her back is when she met Tom.
After the loss of his previous dog Roxy, who was also adopted from the centre, he struggled to take in a new pet. However now that he has Hollie in his life, he has said that his “heart is whole”.
He now has a new girlfriend, who even works alongside him in the animal centre. Their relationship is still very fresh and the self proclaimed “family orientated” man is embracing his new life as a step father to her eight-year-old. He explained that he thinks that the reason why he never met “his person”, is because he wasn’t destined to end up meeting someone in a club.
He described returning back to his home town of Margam as the “biggest lifestyle change ever,” as he lives in an annex built in his mother’s garden. Tom tries to have dinner with his mother around three times a week, as well as taking Hollie for walks together too.
He added: “I’ve never been so at peace here, my life does feel complete and I do feel like I’m on the right journey finally.”
The former islander is now using his large following to help promote the animals who need rescuing from the centre. The only appearances he seems to be making now, other than in the fitness world, is at animal centred events around Swansea.
He was originally brought in to diversify their fundraising events for a new younger generation looking to adopt rescue animals.Tom is set to host a “Paw-ty” at The Swigg, located down Swansea marina on Sunday, May 18. It will be his first time hosting a fundraising event on behalf of the charity and will include a dog show, games and Ibiza style tunes from a local DJ.
You can read more about the amazing work that RSPCA’s Llys Nini do here.