Netflix star Nicole O’Brien has said her parents warned her not to have sex on TV in Too Hot To Handle.
Her admission comes as the nation remains divided on the “controversial” sex scenes in new RTE series Normal People this week.
Despite being unaware of an intimacy ban before heading to Mexico to film the Netflix dating show, the Cork star admitted she was prepared to “do bits” on TV.
Nicole, 24, told the Irish Mirror: “I told my family I was going in, I didn’t tell my sisters until after I did it but I told my mum and dad.
“Because I would have had no contact with them for a month, they probably thought I was being shipped away anywhere.
“But they were the only two people who knew along with a very small handful of friends as well.
“I told my parents ‘Look, you are always going on about how I don’t have a boyfriend, to stop being single and to go and find someone’ so I was like 'what I’ll do is I’ll go in there and meet loads of boys'.
“And obviously my mum and dad were like, ‘Don’t be having sex on TV’ and I said ‘Alright, I’ll see how it goes like’.
“You kind of forget about the cameras and then obviously heard about the premise and none of us had any idea of that.”
The premise of the new show means contestants are banned from getting “physical” – even down to kissing.
Each time a couple breaks the rules, the $100,000 prize money drops.
And Nicole revealed the surprise twist caused some upset initially for those who were expecting a sizzling summer under the sheets.
She said: “You can even see from our reactions, that is all so genuine because we all thought [we would] hopefully find love, might ‘do a few bits’, we will see.
“Then Lana dropped a bombshell we couldn’t do anything.”
