LOVE Island star Adam Collard has addressed his split with Paige Thorne for the first time, after they went their separate ways after he was accused of flirting with other girls behind her back.
The Sun revealed last month that Adam, 27, and Paige, 25, who met on this series of the hit show, had called it a day, and while Paige has discussed her side of things, Adam remained quiet on the matter.
Now, in an exclusive chat with The Sun, Adam has opened up on his side of events admitting he “wants to explain what really happened” and “holds his hands up” after being videoed with his arm around a blonde girl while dating Paige.
Paige split from the online fitness coach after videos emerged of Adam on a night out with his arms around another woman.
She claimed the gym hunk then ghosted her and their relationship ended as a result.
But Adam says this wasn’t the case.
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Speaking out, Adam admits he “shouldn’t have had his arm around [the girl]” like he did, but said it has all been misinterpreted.
He explained: “I’ve heard so much misinformation the past few days, so I feel like I need to now say what really happened.
“The night I was seen with my arm around the girl in McDonald’s I’d been out on a PA and met loads of people that evening. It’s my job at the end of the day, to take pictures and selfies and things like that.
“Anyway, after that me and my friends were starving so we decided to go for a McDonald’s and we walked there whereas normally we’d be taken by security.
“So anyway we just walked along, which isn’t normally the case, and in there was when we met the blonde girl who was like the famous one out of the video that was shared around.
“She actually was really nice and polite and we’d had a couple of drinks but what she said was ‘I got in tonight to the club but my friends didn’t.’
“So what you don’t actually see in the video is the camera goes around and I get photos with all of her friends like that and take pictures with all of them.”
Adam explained that was “all that happened,” adding it was just a “snap shot.”
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The star continued: “It was just a laugh and carry on. Again, another thing you don’t see is that two of my friends are actually on the left and right.
“All we were doing was waiting for food and took pictures with people in there.
“The blonde girl has publicly said she went home on her own and again at the end of the video you don’t see her go left and me go right. But that doesn’t matter because people want to believe what they want to believe.”
Adam added that the following morning was hard, as he knew it was the “beginning of the end” for his relationship with paramedic girlfriend Paige.
He said: “It all got blown out of proportion, then all the other photos and videos I’d taken that night got turned into looking like something else.
“There’s a video of me earlier that night in a club. I don’t even know who took it, but I’ve seen one of them and I think that’s what Paige has been referring to. I was just working.”
Adam’s comment comes as ex Paige has claimed she was sent “more than one” video of Adam that evening.
Appearing on the Saving Grace podcast recently, the brunette beauty said: “It’s not just those videos. There are other videos that people don’t know about – so there’s a lot more to the story – of different people, from the same night, in different locations.”
Adam continued to tell The Sun: “I was working and needed a break from taking all the photos. One of the supervisors walked me downstairs and past the VIP toilet into a private room.
“Because the blonde girl videos came out, this one is another video saying I went off with another girl which again is not true.”
Adam, who shot to fame on Love Island in 2018 before re-entering in 2022, said he had a very straight message to relay.
“It’s hard because there was so much being said on social media, but one thing I really want to get across is that I don’t blame Paige for this at all,” he shared.
Continuing: “It is really hard and all the comments put a strain on the relationship because the trust was damaged.”
Very shortly after the video emerged, Adam had to jet off to Bali for work for a prolonged period of time, leaving his relationship with Paige hanging in the balance.
He said things became “very tense” between them and that he’d tried to make things work and even cancelled a personal appearance in Sheffield in a bid to see Paige and sort the situation out.
Adam added: “That was the day before I went to Bali, and even though I flew from Newcastle I went down to London to try and see, but things after that just became even more distant.
“She actually did believe me which was great, but then you go however many miles across the world and you don’t see each other and things just kind of broke down.
“There were communication barriers.”
Adam admitted that the time difference between them made it hard for them to communicate about what had happened, and that on day three of his Bali trip, they went their separate ways.
Paige claimed Adam ghosted her, and he admitted he did “go a little bit quiet.”
He added: “I’ve got to be honest, again, this is probably a little bit my fault. I went a little bit quiet because I just needed to process like what was going to happen and if this was actually going to work.
“So I ended up splitting up on the second or third day of when I was in Bali.
“I think we both knew then that we were on the same page and we knew what was coming.
“Things just broke down and it’s a shame because I feel like if we’d have met in a bar and not Love Island, maybe it would’ve worked.”
Adam said he’s now not looking for love and wants to focus on his work for the foreseeable, adding that although Paige is “great” he has “drawn a line” under any possibility of their romance being rekindled.
He shared: “She needs to do her thing with work. And I probably need to do mine. I didn’t actually expect it to be this crazy for me this time around coming out of the villa.
“I want to definitely take some time on my own. I don’t know. I’m solely focused on this gym and stuff like that. And I just think that maybe I need it.”
