Paige Thorne was left 'devastated' after being forced to quit paramedic job for Love Island

ok.co.uk:

Paige Thorne was left "devastated" after being forced to quit her paramedic job for Love Island. The 24 year old, from Swansea, appeared on the Girls Know Nothing podcast as she described how torn she was between her beloved job and the "once in a lifetime opportunity" to go on the hit ITV2 show, Love Island.

She said: "When I did tell work I needed the time off to go in [to the villa], my manager was so supportive and she 100 per cent backed me every step of the way. "But the only thing was, I tried all ways to keep my job and do Love Island at the same time. "Obviously, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, apart from for Adam Collard, but he's not doing it a third time.

Paige then touched on how her entering the Love Island villa and keeping her paramedic job might result in a backlash on the NHS, and that her bosses felt that they couldn't take the risk. "I tried taking annual leave, unpaid leave, a career break, I tried every single avenue possible to keep my job as well as do Love Island, but, unfortunately, because paramedics and the ambulance service and the NHS in general get such bad backlash about waiting times and being understaffed and all of this, I think, from a management perspective, they were like, 'Yes, we want to fully support you.'" "I said to my manager 'It's a massive opportunity, is there any way I can do it?" "I think they couldn't risk me going in not knowing me as a person, obviously higher up they don't know me as an individual employee. "I think they were worried that I went in and then it's like, 'Oh, the NHS is struggling this much and paramedics are struggling this much and you've let one have time off to go into Love Island,' it might've created more bad press and bad backlash that they.