As 12 participants rock up to the retreat for this year’s Virgin Island, one of them is the show’s oldest yet.
At thirty-five years old, Ellen says when she was growing up, ‘sex and intimacy’ was something her family didn’t speak about at home. And she has since grown up to become anxious about the topic, struggling with her confidence and social situations.
But watching last year’s debut of the Channel 4 show, she knew she ‘needed help’.
“I saw the therapy side of things and I thought, ‘Wow, I didn't even know that existed,’" Ellen tells LADbible. “And I just wanted to sort of put myself out there.”
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In tonight’s (4 May) episode, viewers get an insight to this, as she works with surrogate partner Kat.
However, she didn’t quite tell her mum the truth about what she was up to, hiding that she was going on Virgin Island.
Ellen’s protective lie to her mum
The childcare practitioner from Hayward’s Heath explains that there was a bit of a hush-hush approach at home, including the likes of ‘taboo’ topics like women’s health.
“Growing up, it was very much like my parents would say, with all of these things like sex and intimacy, ‘we don't talk about them’,” she says. “And even when I started my period, it was a bit like, ‘Okay, you use that for that’ and nothing was sort of said. So, I didn't really tell anyone what I was going through, and it was sort of all internalised.”
Ellen adds that this translated at school as she ‘didn’t really know what was going on’ while her classmates would be exploring relationships.
“I think for me coming out a bit later as queer and how I identify, I think that was one of the things what had stopped me from doing anything,” she says. “But now I’m all ready to go.”
And as she took the plunge to go on Virgin Island, Ellen says her friends, sister and cousins that she told ‘were really positive’ about it.
“My mum was a little bit… I don't think she knew what the show was about really, and so for ages I told her it was the Bake Off - you know something quite chilled out,” she explains.
“And I think she's sort of still putting it to the side and trying not to think about it too much.”
As for her dad, he gave season one a watch and he was more concerned about: “’Am I going to be safe? Are they going to make me do anything that I don't want to do?’ but apart from that, I've had really good support around me, which is amazing.”
Ellen experiences intimacy for the first time with surrogate Kat
In an exclusive clip from tonight’s episode, Ellen says she is ‘scared of being intimate with someone’ and struggles with trusting people.
She meets with surrogate partner Kat to play a game of ‘may I, will you’ to help ‘feel safe enough to lower her defences’ and build trust.
This sees the expert kiss Ellen’s neck which makes her feel ‘a bit anxious’ as she feels like she isn’t ‘good enough’. The pair then start again as Kat nuzzles her body over her clothes which Ellen begins to relax into.
“You have magic powers,” she tells the surrogate, “I feel safe.”
Admitting it turned her on, she then touches Kat’s chest and begins to embrace her desire as the pair end up kissing. This marks a major step forward in Ellen’s journey.
Why Ellen bravely applied for Virgin Island
While she may have struggled with her anxieties, Ellen says she knew she ‘needed help’.
“I just wanted to sort of put myself out there,” she explains. And this meant to get the guidance and help, she would put herself in front of the cameras.
“It costs thousands to go through all of this therapy and I just wouldn't have had the opportunity otherwise,” Ellen explains.
As a result of the experience, she has grown in confidence in social situations and learned she is ‘quite resilient but also I am likeable’.
“It was just nice to be able to be myself and learn a lot about myself. And just that I can be me and I don't need to try and shrink myself to fit in or hide my feelings and my thoughts,” she adds.
And while a lot of the therapy is filmed for the show, other things happen off-camera as the participants can opt to not consent to certain parts to not be shown on TV.
Her fellow participant Bertie summed up this acceptance of getting the help in a filmed environment as he told us: “We don’t do this for fame, we do this to help our own problems that we have in terms of intimacy and in terms of relationships.
“We go on this show because some of us feel like there’s no other way for us to get help other than to do something like this.
“These people aren’t doing this just to get on TV they are people that want help, and they’re brave people that want to get genuine help and if that means going on national TV to get the help that they want then so be it.”
Virgin Island continues on Monday 19 May at 9pm and is available to stream on Channel 4.
Topics: Virgin Island, Channel 4, TV and Film
Jess Battison