DEFIANT Ekin-Su Culculoglu has revealed, for the first time ever, the real reasons behind her CBB fall from grace.
And in her most honest interview ever, she tells how Davide’s endless deceit led to the fallout of their 18-month relationship, which ended in January, left her so broken she should never have gone on the ITV reality show.
Until now, Ekin has kept her silence on the break-up and disastrous run on CBB as she tried to deal with the impact, but now she is ready to explain why she is no longer the fun-loving girl who won Love Island in 2022.
The TV personality, 29, said: ” I should never have gone into the Big Brother house. I was angry, hurt, maybe a bit bitter, definitely insecure – Big Brother is not where you go to heal heartache, let me tell you.
“I went into the show thinking that I could rebuild myself after everything that happened with Davide, but I came off worse. My guard was up.
“I blame myself for making a poor choice in my career. People could see that I wasn’t myself, and I can understand why they thought I was being fake.
“I never wanted to believe the allegations against Davide but people would tell me I was being cheated on all the time. I was so scared of being alone, and I didn’t know who the hell Ekin-Su was meant to be without him.”
Davide and Ekin won Love Island with the ITV dating series’ biggest ever majority.
But just 27 days after the glittering finale in August 2022, cracks emerged when he was filmed by a partygoer leaving a bash with two blondes.
Ekin said: “I was in tears because I just didn’t think I deserved to be treated like that.
“I rang him maybe six or seven times, no answer. I was always made to feel like I was the ‘psycho girlfriend’, and at times I admit that I was.
“I wrote him a message saying, ‘how could you do this to me?’ and he simply replied something like, ‘excuse me?’.
“It made me feel worthless, like I wasn’t even worthy of an explanation.”
The couple forged on and were swept into filming for their spin-off series, Homecomings– but Ekin claims she was confronted by Davide’s deceit even while the ITV2 cameras were on her.
She said: “There’s actually a scene in that where I’m looking at Davide’s phone and I saw a picture of two blonde girls in his flat in Manchester, wearing his hoodies.
“I was conscious of the cameras and I didn’t want to come across like a psychopath going off on him. But it was like a knife through my heart.
“I’d actually been introduced to one of the girls at a New Year’s Eve party.
“She was really sweet to me and asked if I wanted to go for coffee sometime.”
Ekin would later learn that Davide had cheated on her with that girl – who Ekin refused to name – but The Sun has learnt is Harriet Wilson.
Stories in this newspaper in April 2023 told how Ekin had found messages between Davide and Harriet and had fired off an F-word rant to the love rival.
Did he actually cheat on me? Yeah
Ekin-Su
So what really went on? And was it just with Harriet?
Ekin said: “Did he actually cheat on me? Yeah. I have messages from one girl who told me that she had hooked up with him when we were together.
“Another time he left his laptop open. I saw messages, quite explicit messages, sexual ones, between him and the girl I’d met on New Year’s Eve.
“The messages talked about how much fun they’d had together the other night. Seeing those messages, confirming my worst fears, it broke something in me”.
“But this is the crazy thing, I felt bad for him. He was crying and saying how he’d make it up to me.
“The rumours were coming out and I didn’t want anyone to know the truth. Part of that was to protect him, but also I was so embarrassed.
“It wasn’t the fairytale that everybody thought it was. This sort of stuff doesn’t happen in Disney movies, right? Prince Charming never once cheated on Cinderella.”
Davide and Ekin split for the first time in July 2023 after Ekin says he wrongly accused her of cheating on him in Turkey after seeing snaps of her at lunch with a group of friends.
She said: “He accused me of cheating and I went, ‘are you serious after the amount of stuff you did to me? I stood by your side, I defended you’.
“I actually fainted, my mum had to call an ambulance. It was like I’d been punched in the stomach, I was hysterical.
I have messages from one girl who told me that she had hooked up with him when we were together
Ekin-Su
“It was horrific. I wasn’t eating, sleeping, I wore the same clothes for four days.”
This newspaper then exposed Davide for flying out to Ibiza for a wild bender, where he was filmed snorting a white powder.
Despite the scandal, Ekin took him back after they rekindled at ITV’s summer party later that month.
Ekin explained: “It’s like we were addicted to each other, we knew we weren’t good for each other, but neither of us wanted to let each other go.
“We were both in a toxic relationship together.”
The next month, however, Davide went on a secret break to Morocco with a model – a doppelganger for Ekin.
Ekin said: “He went away and when he came back he had this really guilty look on his face. I asked him where he had been because he had a tan, he said Morocco.
“He was really protective of his phone, which should have been a red flag. But he showed me some pictures, they were all of him laying by the pool, drinking a cocktail. I was like, ‘who took all these photos?’. He said a waiter had.
“But I knew something wasn’t right.”
It meant in September when Ekin travelled to Scotland to film the celebrity version of The Traitors for US channel Peacock, she felt she had to “beg” him not to “do anything” and ask him: “Just don’t go out.”
But she emerged from the two-week run to find he had been partying in Manchester– with love rival Harriet.
She said: “I begged him not to go out partying, I said, ‘you know how these things end up when you drink’.
“When I got my phone back after, there were loads of messages from Davide saying how much he missed me and I was over the moon.
“But then I saw messages with pictures of him partying with the girl he had cheated on me with.
“Then I see messages from fans telling me about another Only Fans model he’s been with and saying he was in Morocco with her.
“I couldn’t believe it, it all fell into place.”
Despite all this, Ekin says her final wake-up call came only when he disrespected her mum, Sezer.
She tells how Davide attempted to fake an engagement in front of paps on a family trip to the Colesseum in Rome, Italy.
“My mum was furious. She knew how desperate I was for him to propose to me for real. He shouted at her in front of everyone and said, ‘f*** off’. I was shaking. My mum was only trying to protect me. He stormed off and I was left with my her and my brother in the middle of Rome.
“And yet despite this, I still stayed with him! We’d had a ski trip planned for his birthday and I just had this feeling of guilt, that even after what he’d done, I couldn’t spoil his birthday.
“I remember laying in bed next to him and I knew that would be the last time we shared a bed together.
“I knew that was it, I was done. I would never be enough for him, or pretty enough. I put a statement out and that was it.”
It meant when newly-single Ekin checked in to the CBB house a month later, she was in pieces.
She said: “I look at the girl on Big Brother, and I think who the hell is that? To be honest, I f*cked up. I should never have gone into the Big Brother house.
“I just wasn’t in the right headspace to go on a show like that
“The cheating headlines had chipped away at me and when you’re in a relationship that’s toxic, you can absorb some of the other person’s traits. I was snappy, angry and I just didn’t recognise myself anymore”.
Ekin hopes that speaking up in this interview – for which she has not taken a fee – helps her fans understand the huge change in her since she first found fame on Love Island.
The rumours were coming out and I didn’t want anyone to know the truth
Ekin-Su
But she is aware of potential repercussions.
She added: “I never betrayed Davide but I was hurt and I did get angry. There were a few times he would start a row with me and I’d react, I’d scream and get in his face and then I’d realise he was secretly filming me.
“I’d tell him not to record me, it felt like he had deliberately started the row just to record me so he’d have something to hold over me, for people to silence me.
“I’ve made my fair share of mistakes in life, and I am not going to pretend I’ve always been Little Miss Perfect. I did send messages to one of the girls that I’m not proud of, I was so angry and hurt over the betrayal that I lashed out at the girl when it wasn’t actually her fault – she wasn’t the one in a relationship.
“But I was so upset, I felt worthless and I exploded. I do regret that.”
Ekin adds that Davide messaged her after CBB to see how she was.
She adds: “He and I have spoken since over text. He reached out to me to ask if I was okay in April, which was kind of him.
“No matter what happened in the relationship, we shared a lot together”
“I feel so awful for saying the truth and even now there’s still a part of me that wants to protect Davide.
I remember laying in bed next to him and I knew that would be the last time we shared a bed together
Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu
“You don’t just stop caring about somebody you were so in love with.”
She added: “I messed up going on the show, I take full accountability for that. And I am aware that me speaking out puts a target on my back but I’m sick of being scared to tell the truth“.
Davide said in response to Ekin Su: “I’m sorry to hear that Ekin still feels the need to talk about me in order to have a storyline.
“I haven’t mentioned her to respect our past and because I never wanted to. I don’t understand her claims since I was alone and single on all my holidays.
“I could have mentioned the messages I found on her phone many times, but I didn’t. I didn’t watch Big Brother, but I heard she showed her true self.
“She should wash her mouth before talking about me.“
- Tomorrow, Ekin-Su opens up on CBB, her regrets, and she tells all on her dating life.
Timeline of Davide's cheating
AUG 1, 2022: Wins Love Island with Ekin-Su and they become official couple
AUG 28, 2022: Filmed leaving a nightclub with two Icelandic blondes
SEPT 2022: Ekin-Su claims she saw photos on his phone of two other women, Harriet Wilson and Phoebe Wintle, while being filmed for ITV2 Homecomings
NOV 2022: Moves in with Ekin-Su in London
MAR 2023: Cheats on Ekin-Su with Harriet Wilson
APR 2023: Ekin-Su confronts Harriet, with The Sun on Sunday reporting on the spat
JUN 29, 2023: Davide breaks up with Ekin-Su while she is in Turkey, accusing her of cheating on him
JUL 2, 2023: Davide filmed snorting a white powder while away in Ibiza
JUL 20, 2023: Ekin-Su and Davide rekindle romance after leaving ITV’s summer party together
END JUL 2023: Takes another woman, a doppelganger for Ekin-Su, on a secret trip to Morocco
AUG 2023: Ekin-Su and Davide post loved-up snaps in Turkey for her birthday
SEPT 2023: Ekin-Su films The Traitors in Scotland, Davide pictured partying with Harriet
CHRISTMAS 2023: Ekin-Su and Davide’s families holiday together in Rome and are seen rowing outside the Colosseum
JAN 2024: Ekin-Su joins Davide on birthday ski trip in Alps then on return they break up
MAR 2024: Ekin-Su features on Celebrity Big Brother. Davide filmed ranting “f*** Ekin-Su” while in Dubai and flies to Sweden to date a model
MAR 30, 2024: Davide filmed preparing hippy crack balloons at a party and is dropped by major brands
