Jack Fowler has revealed his secret battle with a disease which left him paralysed from the waist down earlier this year.
The 24-year-old, who took part in the 2018 series of Love Island, was diagnosed with a rare condition in January - but he kept his health news private and decided against posting about it on social media.
Speaking to the Oxford Union, Jack said: “At the start of this year — no one knows this — I had something called transverse myelitis.
“I lost all movement in my legs and my left arm, paralysed, I was in a wheelchair for two or three weeks.”
However, his social media told a different story.
“On my Instagram I was having a wicked time, I was having a great time,” he explained. "I was in Dubai, I was in Thailand for all of the two weeks because that’s the ’gram making it look like that.
"But realistically, I wasn’t — I was going through the hardest time of my life.”
Transverse myelitis is an inflammation of the spinal cord and doctors are unsure exactly what causes it.
In recent weeks, Jack has used his Instagram account to speak out on political and social causes, sharing his support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
The former footballer explained how growing up with a black father gave him “a powerful insight into what racism really is.”
“I was educated from a young age about the slave trade as my ancestors were slaves on their home island, Saint Helena,” he wrote. “The experiences that my dad had growing up being a man of colour in school and throughout adulthood have been taught to me.”
