By Liam de Brun
Georgia Harrison has paid tribute to late Love Island star Mike Thalassitis, who she appeared with on the reality show. Mike took his life at the age of 26 in March 2019, two years after appearing on the third season of the ITV programme in 2017. Taking part alongside Mike on the series, which was won by Amber Davies and Kem Centinay, was Georgia, who was recently awarded an MBE. Appearing on this week鈥檚 episode of the We Need To Talk podcast with Paul C Brunson, Georgia said that Mike was the first person close to her who took their own life. 鈥淗e was the first person I was close to, the first person around my age, he was on my series, me and him actually got on really well on my series. When we got back to reality, me and Montana would spend quite a bit of time with Mike. 鈥淚 used to go on quite a few PA鈥檚 with him, so I spent quite a lot of close time with him and I just always thought he had it all, I thought he was so handsome, so funny, such a gentleman, he was the sort of guy that if we were moving into a hotel he鈥檇 grab all the girls bags. 鈥淚 remember just always thinking 鈥業鈥檇 love to date a boy like Mike鈥, so it鈥檚 so sad to think that deep down he was really insecure and didn鈥檛 see those aspects of himself.鈥 Asked by Paul if there were there any moments where she felt that Mike seemed off, Georgia recalled the last time she saw him. 鈥淭he last time I saw him, me him and Montana went to Sexy Fish and during that time my best friend had cancer and was in a hospital nearby where we were and I remember me Mon and Mike went for one drink after and then he wanted us to stay but we couldn鈥檛 stay because I had to go see my friend in the hospital and I think Mon had to do something as well. 鈥淚 always remember thinking looking back I feel like he had more to talk about and I really regretted not staying like I can鈥檛 blame myself for leaving because I was dealing with other issues at that time and you know you never know what鈥檚 gonna happen in life. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 overthink things like that but when you replay the night in your head I can definitely see that he was struggling, and I think he used to let on a lot more to Mon than he did to me.” Georgia continued: 鈥淚 just think he鈥檚 an absolute legend, I think he taught people how to be a real gentleman. If you really knew him, you would look at him and think if I have a son one day I want him to be just like you. 鈥淎nd I think the only thing his loss can teach people is just do your best to hang on and do your best to try and see the qualities in yourself that other people see in you.鈥 Anyone impacted by this story are encouraged to visit the Samaritans website