Tamer Hassan, the famous father of former Love Island star Belle Hassan, has revealed what really happened when they filmed the show’s iconic Meet The Parents episode.
The actor entered the villa during the final week of the 2019 series, where he visited his beloved daughter Belle and met her then-boyfriend Anton Danyluk.
Ahead of this year’s Meet The Parents episode, which will air later this week, Tamer has shared what goes on behind the scenes of the much-anticipated episode.
Tamer confessed: “I never wanted to go into the villa but said yes when Belle got on the show thinking I could pull out later. But then when it’s your daughter it’s so hard to say no – I just do as I’m told.”
“I asked my managers if I should do it and they all told me ‘go in and just be a dad’ so I did.”
The Layer Cake star also said all the parents had to sign non disclosure agreements.
“It’s the last week and that can be a real game changer in the show,” he explained. “So you’re banned from social media and you are not allowed to tell anyone if you are going into the villa or not. It might give the game away.”
The day before filming, Tamer and his wife Karen were flown out to Majorca and brought to a hotel, where they met the other parents.
He said: “Production told us other parents were staying in the hotel so we went down to the pool and started introducing ourselves.”
“I bought everyone drinks and made sure they got merry. Then we all went for dinner – it was a great group of lovely people. It was like a Love Island party within Love Island.”
Speaking about filming the actual episode in the villa, Tamer said: “Filming felt like a lifetime because it was baking hot. It felt like two or three hours but it was about an hour.”
The 54-year-old also revealed the parents are “told what to do” by producers over the speakers, and are under strict instructions not to tell their children about the public’s reaction to them on the show.
While the parents are told not to speak to anyone apart from their child and partner, Tamer said he couldn’t help but break the rules.
“As I was leaving I had a little bit of banter with the boys on the way out – I could tell they were excited to meet me so I couldn’t say no,” he confessed. “Evidently they were fans of my films.”
Love Island continues tonight at 9pm on Virgin Media Two.
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