Love Island’s Shaughna Phillips was showered with well-wishes earlier this week when she revealed she’s expecting her second child. However, fans might be taken aback to discover that the star fell pregnant during a brief visit home from her boyfriend Billy Webb – who’s currently serving a nine-year sentence for Class A drug offences.
Despite this, Shaughna admits she planned the pregnancy, even tracking her ovulation to increase her chances of conceiving. She admits, however, she was shocked that her baby dream became a reality so swiftly. “It was the first time that my ovulation window coincided with Billy being home,” shares Shaughna, who is four-and-a-half months pregnant. “I was like, ‘You know what? Why not? Let’s just see’. And literally, the next day, I said to Billy, ‘I think I’m pregnant.'”.
Her intuition was confirmed ten days later, when multiple pregnancy tests turned out positive. “I found out very, very early on,” she exclusively tells The Mirror. “I was doing maybe five tests a day. I’m not even exaggerating.”
Shaughna says Billy, who was jailed in 2023, is granted home visits “a few days” each month. Although the star has been a solo mum since giving birth to their daughter Lucia in April 2023, she shared that Billy is due for early release and should be reunited with his family in time for their new arrival. “I know the date that he’s due to be home, but I’m not saying it just because anything could happen,” she says carefully. “But hopefully he will be fully home before my baby is due.”
She is looking forward to Billy being present for the new baby’s arrival, particularly since he missed Lucia’s early months due to his incarceration. “He definitely wanted another one. He didn’t get that newborn experience [with Lucia] and I think that’s what he wanted,” she says, joking that she wants Billy to “experience the newborn stage and everything it has to offer, because he does not know what is coming his way.”
Currently, Shaughna and her little girl are staying with her solicitor mum while their home undergoes renovations. When the star welcomed Lucia in April 2023, Billy had already been taken into custody after being charged with possession with intent to supply a Class A drug.
Despite “hating every minute” of seeing her daughter in a prison environment, she remained committed to keeping the father-daughter bond intact and regularly took Lucia to visit Billy.
“I never would have chosen this life for my daughter,” she said. “I don’t think it hit me what was happening until I got into the building. I was so nervous, but it was never a question for me. I always knew I was going to take Lucia to visit her dad regardless of what was going on between us at the time.”
Shaughna confessed that while she had been eager to conceive again, upon finding out she was pregnant, her feelings were mixed as she worried about her daughter feeling sidelined.
“I was hoping for it, but then the second I found out, I instantly felt guilty for Lucia,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, what have I done? I don’t want you to ever think that you were being replaced or anything like that’. It literally breaks my heart when I think about it.”
The Love Island alum, who appeared on the hit dating show in season six, shared that her little girl is blissfully unaware of the new baby on the way, with a light-hearted add, “She just probably thinks I’ve had a really big dinner.”
Reflecting on her impressive 6st weight loss journey over the last year and a bit, Shaughna expressed her desire to adopt a more self-compassionate approach this time around. “I signed up to a gym three weeks after I had Lucia,” she remembers.
“I don’t know why I did it because I didn’t go, but I had it in my head I needed to get back into my jeans.”
“I’m in a different mindset now. I’ve had a lifestyle overhaul and I’m more educated when it comes to diet and exercise. That said, I’m not going to pretend I’ve not thought about putting weight back on in this pregnancy, but I’m not going to put myself under the same kind of pressure I did the first time around. There’s no greater blessing than a child and that’s far more important than worrying about my weight.”
She also candidly spoke about putting herself under unnecessary pressure after receiving hurtful comments online. “People are cruel to me regardless – whether I’m skinny, overweight, pregnant, not pregnant, single or not,” Shaughna shared, dismissing rumours that her weight loss is the result of weight loss injections. “So I really need to try and drown out that outside noise.”
Shaughna and Billy first met in April 2019 through a mutual friend, but they paused their budding romance when she got the chance to join Love Island. “I was like, ‘I’m not giving up the opportunity for Love Island for a boy I’ve known for less than a month at this point’,” she admitted.
After her stint on the reality show, Shaughna and Billy reconnected and lived together until 2023, when Billy was arrested when she was seven months pregnant with Lucia.
He was sentenced to nine years in prison after he admitted conspiracy to supply 4.5kg of cocaine worth at least £360,000. Speaking about the terms of his early release, Shaughna says, “He got nine years, but he had already served one year on remand. So that comes off, and you now serve 40 per cent of your sentence.
“I think by the time he comes out, he would have done over two and a half years in prison – and he will be on tag for a year. then he’ll be on license for the rest.”
Reflecting on Billy’s crime, she says, “Obviously he’d done this thing, which I don’t condone, and he’s paid his price for it. Although we’re not married yet, I do try to live by the mantra ‘for better or for worse’ and unfortunately, this was the worst, and he has to live with that now.”
Despite the situation, Shaughna admits Billy is thrilled at the prospect of becoming a dad again but wittily suggests he might be unprepared for the reality, adding that he’s “excited” about the new baby, yet she quips, “doesn’t know what’s going to hit him”.
Billy is “excited” about having another baby, Shaughna says, but jokes that he “doesn’t know what’s going to hit him” when she finally gives birth. He was able to join her for her unborn baby’s 12-week scan, says Shaughna, who reveals she’ll be having her second baby by C-section.
“I had a hospital appointment recently and they said that they think I might need a C-section just because of where my placenta is,” she says. “I was planning a C-section anyway, but it looks like I might have had to have had one, regardless. So yes, this baby will be coming out of the sunroof and not any other exit.”