LOVE Island’s Zach Noble today broke his silence over homophobia claims.
It came after his fellow Islander Mitchel Taylor was reportedly “dropped by his management” over the same claims following an incident at a recent event.
The pair were accused of homophobia at Space NK’s launch event in London last week.
Zachariah has now taken to Instagram to refute the claims.
In a lengthy post the reality star said he was “embarrassed” that he was having to address the issue, when he had “nothing to be blamed for”.
Addressing his followers he wrote: “Hey guys, what a long week it’s been. I’m embarrassed to have to address this and never imagined I’d be here writing this.
“Over the past few days, I’ve received a number of hateful messages regarding accusations from last week that are currently circulating the internet.”
Zach went on: “So I would like to address this from my side and give clarity that the narrative circulating about me is 100% untrue.
“Never in my life have I been homophobic and any insinuation of this is extremely wrong & hurtful.
“I am truly saddened to hear that someone was upset that evening but this has nothing to do with me. I wasn’t even present at the time of this incident/ misunderstanding.
“We live in a society where everyone wants to consider mental health and look out for one another, yet there is still some people online who have clearly forgotten how impactful their words can be and just jump on bandwagons.
“Everyone is so quick to judge and believe and hear things they hear and read even if its untrue.
“We really need to realise how powerful words can be and find out the real facts before coming at people, especially with people with high platforms as its these people who has pushed this false narrative onto my name and influence the way people think.
“This is all I have to say on the matter and I hope it brings you lot of closure.”
Mitchell also addressed the claims on TikTok, and said: “I’m making this statement because over the weekend there were a lot of accusations against me and Zach.
“I do want to start off by apologising to Zach because these accusations had nothing to do with him, he has just been dragged straight into them, they are solely about me.”
Addressing the accusation of homophobia he said: “This is probably the biggest accusations out of them all about being homophobic. I spoke to an influencer at the event and my words were, ‘I fancied you when you were straight’.
“I can see how that can come across as homophobic, I’m really bad with my words sometimes, I was just nervous to meet this person because I am a fan.
“I do apologise, it’s just when I’m in scenarios like that I can’t really get my words out correctly and I was just trying to be as respectful to that person as I could and I kind of got it completely wrong.”
However, it is now being reported he Mitchell has been dropped by his management, following claims of homophobia.
A source told MailOnline: ‘His management have parted way with him.
“He’s only been out of the villa two months and they can’t put up with it.’
Zach and Mitchell became friends when they both appeared on the latest series of Love Island this summer.
