‘Love Island’s Austin Shepard Went To Rehab After 'Beyond The Villa'

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Love Island USA’s Austin Shepard opened up about his sobriety journey during a March 9 appearance on TMZ’s Previously On… podcast. In the interview, Shepard said that he is 11 days sober after going to rehab for his opioid addiction. According to him, he relapsed while filming Love Island: Beyond the Villa without producers’ knowledge.

“I'm a pretty manipulative, functional addict until it becomes so unmanageable, like how it got,” he said. Apparently, he “tried to avoid filming as much as possible” to keep his relapse under wraps. “I was ducking out on a lot of the filming just ‘cause I looked horrible and I didn't even want to be seen,” he added.

“I was a hermit in my apartment for two and a half months, like I barely left,” he said.

Although producers did not notice, Shepard’s Beyond the Villa co-stars picked up on his struggles. “Charlie [Georgio] started reaching out in the last month and was like, ‘Bro what’s going on?’” he said. “I just got pretty real wit...