Georgia Harrison from Season 3 of Love Island has been forced to deny claims that she is racist.
Old photos of Harrison posted to Instagram have resurfaced.
The images show her posing with blackface paint.
The now-deleted snap shows Georgia and 2 young boys who also have their faces painted.
Blackface is the use of makeup on a non-black person to represent a caricature of a black person. The act was widespread in the 19th and 20th century to spread negative racist stereotypes.
The act is now considered extremely offensive and disrespectful.
A spokesperson told the Mirror: “The claim that Georgia is racist is disgusting and really worrying.”
“Georgia attended a kid’s birthday party about 10 years ago, and it was a face-painting party.”
“The little boy who’s birthday it was asked Georgia to have her face painted and he chose to paint it black and silver – at no point did Georgia at the time think it would be offensive.”
“Of course now she understands the situation differently and would be horrified to know she’d upset people,” they revealed.
“However, the bullying campaign that has been launched against Georgia online isn’t fair. She’s not able to reply to people because she’s away working and hasn’t got access to her phone.”
Wow Georgia. This is disgusting and way out of line. And to think this isn’t the only time you’ve done blackface. Smh.
Also it’s no one’s place to say if this is acceptable or not. It’s extremely offensive, and someone needs to take accountability#TheChallenge34 pic.twitter.com/fH7bhPVNMm— Masala Chip (@masalachip) September 9, 2019
A second photo also surfaced showing her posing with black facepaint.
One Tweeter shared the photo and said: “Wow Georgia. This is disgusting and way out of line. And to think this isn’t the only time you’ve done blackface. Smh.”
They continued to slam the star saying “Also it’s no one’s place to say if this is acceptable or not. It’s extremely offensive, and someone needs to take accountability.”
22-year-old Georgia, from Essex, entered the villa on Day 36 of Season 3 where she initially coupled up with Kem Cetinay.
On Day 46 she walked out in 6th place alongside Sam Gowland.
She is currently taking part in US series The Challenge.
The show sees 34 contestants take on mental and physical challenges to win a share of $1 million.
Goss.ie has contacted Georgia Harrison’s rep for comment.
