Tasha Ghouri has been opening up about having a cochlear implant and how her boyfriend Andrew Le Page supports her each day.
The couple met on Love Island in 2022, when Tasha became the first deaf contestant to take part in the reality show.
Tasha, who had her cochlear implant fitted when she was five, has revealed ‘it’s so special’ that her partner understands her deafness and helps her to spread awareness.
While speaking to OK!, Ghouri admitted, “Finding Andrew was amazing. It’s so special that he’s so involved with me and my deafness”.
“He understands when I need a break and, if I need to have my implant out for the whole morning, he completely gets it. It’s so important to have that”.
Tasha also spoke about the touching tattoo Andrew got on his arm for her, shortly after they left the Love Island villa.
“He surprised me by getting a tattoo that reads “I love you” in sign language. I melted inside when he showed me. All I’ve ever wanted is to have that support and he went the extra mile”.
The Superpowers with Tasha podcast host then explained how surprised she was that Love Island wanted to have her on the show because she ‘didn’t feel that there was representation’ for those who wear cochlear implants on television.
“When Love Island asked me to go on the show I was in complete shock. I didn’t think they’d have someone with a cochlear implant”.
“Growing up, I didn’t feel represented on TV except when Rose Ayling-Ellis went on Strictly Come Dancing”.
“That’s when I started to see the walls break down. One big misconception about having a cochlear implant is that it’s an “easy” fix. That’s 100% not true”.
“It doesn’t fix my ears and it doesn’t fix my hearing. It’s like having a robot device that gives me that hearing. There’s a lot of side effects too. It can be so draining having to lip read and in noisy environments I get bad migraines”.
Sharing more of an insight into how her lack of hearing impacts her and the ways Love Island producers supported her on the show, Tasha revealed, “I get a lot of concentration fatigue and I’ll be so tired that I need to take two or three days to recharge. Even in the Love Island villa, I was tired every day and producers would let me have 30-minute naps”.
