Love Island’s Sharon Gaffka is full of praise for her cancer survivor mum, who supported her dreams to become a beauty pageant queen.
The 25-year-old civil servant is the latest addition to the villa, and has spoken of her admiration for her mother as she battled cancer back in 2013.
Posting a photo of her parents on Instagram which showed her mother in a hospital bed, Sharon wrote: “My hero #cancersurvivor.”
The model also won Miss International UK in 2018, and had been competing to win the chance to compete for the United Kingdom at the Miss Universe international beauty pageant earlier this year.
She credited her mum for supporting her beauty queen dreams, and in a sweet post on social media, Sharon said she was her “soul mate”.
“Happy Mother’s Day to my best friend and soul mate! I don’t know what I would do without you!” she wrote, before adding, “I do love you with all of my heart! Miss you so much!” in Indonesian.
Her beloved mum was with her when she won the Miss International UK contest in 2018, and Sharon shared a heartwarming behind-the-scenes snap of the twosome in an emotional embrace.
“The real queen,” she wrote.
Sharon, who works as a civil servant for the Department of Transport, paid tribute to her mum in another Instagram post, and thanked her for her unwavering support as she pursued her modelling and beauty queen career.
“Happy Mother’s Day to the most amazing woman in the world! All she wanted to do today was be taken to the Chinese supermarkets so now I’m currently walking around with bags of fruit and vegetables!” she joked.
“I hope everyone enjoys spending time with their families today! But an extra big shoutout to the mums who are dads and the dads who are mums, because it’s not just about the mums, but everyone who acts like one.”
Sharon, who also serves as an ambassador for feminist organisation The Young Women's Trust, said she was inspired to apply for Love Island because she was the only singleton left in her group of friends.
"It's probably because I’m the most outrageous one out of the group. But also because of Covid and the lockdown, I’m the only single one in my friendship group.
"They’re either married or planning on getting married. I don’t want to be the only one in the group chat that is single anymore!" she laughed.
Sharon is on the lookout for a tall, intelligent partner in the coveted Spanish villa, and hinted that viewers won’t know what to expect from her once she arrives.
“I have this thing where if something doesn’t work out with one person, I’ll try and go for the other extreme to see if that works out.
“I tend to date someone who is taller than me, even though my last long-term partner, he was actually someone who was shorter than me. I’m quite an intellectual person so I want someone who can kind of match that,” she teased.
