Maura Higgins admits to cutting her father off after "horrendous" phone call

Maura Higgins has opened up about her childhood, admitting that she doesn't have a relationship with her dad and that she cut him off after a "horrendous" phone call.

The TV star also opened up about her experience with sexual assault and being in a "dark place" after leaving the Love Island villa in 2019.

When speaking about her youth Maura said: “When I look back at my childhood, I don’t think I was a very happy kid”.

She explained that her parents had a “very nasty breakup” and that she saw her mother struggle a lot, even recalling witnessing her have a “nervous breakdown”.

Read more: Strictly's Pete Wicks' love life: Co-star relationships, Jowita rumours and Maura Higgins kiss

Read more: Maura Higgins emotionally says 'I didn't want to be here anymore' after Love Island fame

When asked about her relationship with her father, Maura recalled that he worked a lot and “wasn’t really around”, but her relationship with him became more strained after her parent’s divorce.

“Now I don’t have a relationship with my Dad”, she admitted, although she noted that her association with her father ended after Love Island and the tragic passing of her best friend: “I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven my Dad for not being there for me when my best friend passed away”.

The 33-year-old recalled a phone conversation she had with her father where she described the way he spoke to her as “horrendous”, saying: “I physically couldn’t breathe after the phone call.

"I thought to myself, 'I wouldn't let a partner talk to me like that. I wouldn't let a friend talk to me like that. I'm not going to let my dad talk to me like that".

In her interview with Paul Brunson on his We Need to Talk podcast, the Longford native also revealed that she was sexually assaulted in a taxi when she was 27 and explained how her partner at the time blamed her for it, asking her why she drank so much alcohool.

Maura admitted that she regrets not reporting the taxi driver for the assault at the time because he may have gone on to do the same to other girls, but she was afraid to because the man knew where she lived. She recalled thinking, "I live here alone, and I’m not living in fear”.

When discussing her Love Island debut, Maura confessed to going on the dating show for revenge on her previous partner who cheated on her. “I was on a revenge streak! I went in there guns blazing”, she laughed. When asked about her motivations for going on the show, she even admitted “I definitely wasn’t there for love”.

Later on in the interview, Maura broke down when speaking about the difficult time she had after leaving the villa in 2019 saying she was in a “dark place”.

“I was just dropped to the UK. It was like someone just picked me up, dropped me to the UK and I was in the public eye. I had nowhere to live. I had no friends, no family, nobody I could trust.

"I've done everything by myself. I've been independent my whole life. But that was a lot. That was scary. Very, very scary.”

“I didn't want to be here anymore. I thought that was going to be the best thing.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Maura also finally broke the silence surrounding her rumoured romance with Strictly Come Dancing star Pete Wicks after the two were spotted together on multiple occasions. She told Brunson: “We just get on very, very well. I adore him, he's an amazing person.”