Love Island star Amber Gill has rubbished Lucie Donlan’s claims she wanted to call co-star Yewande Biala a nickname as ‘a term of endearment’.
After recently resurfaced messages showed Lucie, 22, branding Yewande, 25, a ‘bully’, the surfer told MailOnline that things went awry because she wanted to call her co-star a nickname after ‘having trouble’ pronouncing her moniker.
However, Amber, 23, took to Twitter on Wednesday to shoot down Lucie’s claims, branding her actions in the Love Island villa back in 2019 a ‘micro aggression’.
Rubbished: Love Island star Amber Gill (pictured) has rubbished Lucie Donlan’s claims she wanted to call co-star Yewande Biala a nickname as ‘a term of endearment’
She wrote: ‘[By the way], asking someone you don’t know (well) who has an ethnic name if you can call them a “nickname” is not a term of endearment it’s a micro aggression & you don’t have the right to say there is no malicious/sinister intent you just don’t do it I thought that was just common sense [sic].’
When another Twitter user responded that Amber is ‘not letting this go’, the Newcastle native wrote back: ‘Na I will let it go as it’s boring but you can’t comment saying “I was doing it to use it as a term of endearment no sinister intent” you need to learn it’s actually not ok just apologise and move on [sic].’
Amber’s tweets come after Lucie told MailOnline she had received death threats after her feud with former contestant Yewande escalated into a race row.
Name: After resurfaced messages showed Lucie, right, branding Yewande, left, a ‘bully’, the surfer said she wanted to call her a nickname after ‘having trouble’ pronouncing her moniker
Micro aggression: However, Amber, 23, took to Twitter on Wednesday to shoot down Lucie’s claims, branding her actions in the Love Island villa back in 2019 a ‘micro aggression’
Lucie was bombarded with messages online accusing her of racism following the discovery of old Instagram comments by social media site Reddit, in which she claimed Yewande ‘bullied’ her during the 2019 series.
Scientist Yewande hit back on Monday evening, accusing the blonde of refusing to pronounce her name correctly on the show and co-star Amber also weighed in, branding Lucie a ‘bitch and a liar’ for her allegations.
Lucie said: ‘These are really old comments dug up purely to incite a row between two females. In this day and age and with everything going on in the world, we should all be sticking together not attacking each other.
‘I’ve been sent death threats which are incredibly scary as you can imagine. I said on the show I had trouble pronouncing Yewande’s name, it’s just what I’m like.
‘Old comments’: Lucie said she has been bombarded with hateful messages accusing her of racism following the discovery of old comments in which she claimed Yewande bullied her
Former co-stars: Lucie and Yewande appeared on Love Island together in 2019 alongside Amy Hart and winner Amber Gill, who have both commented in defence of Yewande this week
‘And I asked if I could use a shortened abbreviated version of her name instead as a term of endearment – there’s nothing sinister to it.
‘I regret how just a few old comments sent 18 months ago has snowballed like this and got out of hand, and drummed up some needless negativity. Can we all just move on from this please?’
The Instagram messages unearthed by Reddit were from sent shortly after the completion of the series in which Lucie and Yewande appeared.
They contained comments from Lucie that she was ‘not bothered’ about the opinion of the Irish star after she allegedly branded her boring on the ITV2 show.
A fan had asked Lucie ‘how do you feel about Yewande saying you’re a horrible person?’
‘Now you wanna say I bullied you’: Yewande hit back on Monday, accusing Lucie of refusing to pronounce her name correctly on the show and said she is in fact the one to blame
The Cornwall-born model replied: ‘She’s always bullied me. I’m not bothered by her opinion… makes her look bad. Not sure where she said that though!’
Yewande hit back with accusations of her own, claiming Lucie refused to use her name in the villa as it was ‘too hard to pronounce.’
Taking to Twitter, Yewande wrote: ‘You refused to call me by my name because it was too ‘hard to pronounce’ now you wanna say I bullied you !! Bullied.’
Co-star Amber, who won the series of the show, backed up Yewande, saying : ‘Na when she said can I call you ‘Y’ I said lol no you can’t can I just call you ‘her’ you were peaceful in that exchange It was me with the vim.’
‘There’s so much you don’t see’: Amy defended Yewande on Monday, calling her friend a ‘beautiful and respectful queen’ and claimed a lot more has gone on behind the scenes
Underneath a post of UKGossipTV’s Instagram, which detailed the back and forth between the parties, Amber wrote: ‘Cut me a f**king break man…
‘You know that b***h lying, Yewande is one of the quietist [motherf**kers] I ever met AND it’s almost two years later and we are not over it it man it’s boring’.
Another Islander in the series Amy Hart also jumped to Yewande’s defence, writing on Twitter: ‘I bit my tongue today, tomorrow may be different. My final thought of the evening, this beautiful,respectful QUEEN has sat on this for almost two years…
‘We haven’t spoken about it publicly because it was Yewande’s story to tell. I remember dates, times, locations of every conversation in that villa. There’s so much you don’t see.’
‘I’m yelling, I don’t care’: Love Island 2019 winner Amber spoke out on the feud, tweeting on Monday that she refuses to stay quiet if she ‘sees something false’ about a friend