It’s the end of a long shoot day when I finally sit down with Zara McDermott. The rails of clothes have done their job, the cameras are down and the Charlotte Simone coat and slingbacks she’s spent part of the afternoon posing in for her Cosmopolitan UK digital cover have been traded for a comfy tracksuit. You might expect her energy to be flagging. Instead, Zara is warm, open and ready to talk.
Sure, she’s three coffees deep, but caffeine alone probably doesn’t explain the pace of her life lately. She’s recently returned from LA, where she has been splitting her time with London, and is nearing the end of filming her latest BBC Three documentary series. Then there are two podcasts, an upcoming appearance on ITV’s Cooking with the Stars and a relationship that’s attracted more than a little attention.
“Every single week is different,” she tells me. “That’s actually something that I really love about my life.”
The downside is that Zara has become almost impossible to make plans with. When her mum recently asked whether she might join the family on holiday next summer, there was really only one answer: “I genuinely don’t know. I may be somewhere else in the world.”
Coat, Charlotte Simone. Shoes, Kiana Ghavidel. Ring, Pandora. Earrings and Earcuff, Otiumberg. Socks, Calzedonia.
At this point, that feels less like a scheduling problem than a fairly accurate summary of Zara’s life. At 29, her career spans documentaries, podcasts, entertainment television and the glossy world we’re currently sitting in – an unusual combination, and one she is well aware doesn’t fit neatly into the box people once put her in.
Because, of course, the first box was Love Island.
Top and Skirt, Alémais. Shoes, Kiana Ghavidel. Earrings, Hugo Kreit at Koibird. Bracelet, Zara’s Own. Socks, Falke.
From bombshell to broadcaster
Zara entered the villa as a bombshell during its blockbuster fourth series, the summer of Dani Dyer, Megan Barton-Hanson and Doctor Alex. It was 2018, when appearing on the show could transform a twentysomething into a household name overnight.
Zara lasted 10 days. Those 10 days have followed her for considerably longer.
“I haven’t followed the conventional path that someone who comes out of Love Island normally would, and that definitely hasn’t been an easy path to forge,” she says. “I’m a girly girl. I love beauty. I love make-up. I love dressing up. I love pretty outfits and getting glam. But I also think it’s really important to use your voice for something where you can create change and have power.”
For years, she admits, she has felt as though she’s been walking a tightrope between those two versions of herself. “Trying to balance these scales, I found has always been a constant battle of ‘I always want to be taken seriously in the documentary space, but that doesn’t mean that a woman can’t also be a woman and love the things that she loves.’”
Shirt, With Nothing Underneath. Earrings and Earcuff, Otiumberg.
What frustrates her is the idea that reality television on your CV can somehow determine how seriously you’re taken long after you’ve left it behind. “People have a perception that, ‘Oh well, if she did that, then she can’t be intelligent, or she must be incapable of having a serious conversation.’”
I haven’t followed the conventional path that someone who comes out of Love Island normally would
Then she gets to the crux of it. “Just because someone might have taken a fun opportunity at the age of 21, it doesn’t mean they can’t campaign against violence against women when they get a little bit older, or even straight after,” she says.
And Zara has spent much of her twenties doing exactly that.
Her documentaries have taken her into worlds far removed from the usual reality TV star trajectory. Her first BBC documentary, Revenge Porn, aired in 2021 and began with something painfully personal: Zara had experienced intimate images of herself being shared without her consent. The film expanded beyond her own experience to meet other victims and investigate the devastating impact of image-based abuse.
What could have been a one-off became the beginning of something. Since then, she has made documentaries about rape culture, eating disorders, stalking and the darker side of some of our favourite holiday destinations. Her current project will be her ninth and will see her working alongside Lancashire Police as they follow a large-scale investigation into intimate image abuse.
The subjects haven’t become easier to carry.
“I personally think empathy is a skill that you learn through your life,” she shares. “It takes experiencing things, but also seeing other people’s experiences, for you to grow the empathy that you have for others.” If anything, the more stories she hears, the more overwhelming the scale of the problems can feel. “As you get older, you start to see how much change is needed in this world.”
There is an instinct to want to fix things for the women and families she meets, Zara admits, followed by the difficult realisation that she can’t. “So many times, I just want to do everything I can to help. But the biggest thing I can do is spread the message far and wide.”
She is conscious, too, of never making somebody else’s trauma about her. “I never want to be self-indulgent and talk about how much that affects me, because the person this affects most is the survivor that I’m speaking to and the family,” she says. “I want to be their voice as much as I can, or their vessel for telling their story.”
What almost a decade of making documentaries has changed is her perspective. The more people she meets, Zara says, the more aware she becomes of just how much there is to change, and of the limits of what one person can actually do. That perspective inevitably follows her online. When your working day can involve conversations about sexual assault, intimate image abuse and cyber abuse, the casual cruelty of social media starts to look especially bleak.
“When you’re dealing with so many big problems in the day, you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, social media, where are we going?’”
Jumper, Sandro. Bloomers, Lisa the Label. Loafers, G.H. Bass. Rings, Pandora. Bracelet, Zara’s Own. Tights, Swedish Stockings. Bag, Vintage Louis Vuitton at Cocoon Club.
What particularly frustrates her is the way women are spoken about. She recently came across an article about herself that she felt undermined her by comparing her to her partner, One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson. For Zara, it feeds into a much wider culture of picking women apart; their faces, clothes, bodies, relationships, even something they said five years ago, and one she increasingly wants to see change.
“I would love to see a general culture shift away from the way that we speak about women,” she says. “We shouldn’t be undermining women in any way. We don’t do the same for men a lot of the time.”
At the most serious end of that spectrum is what she describes as an “epidemic” of violence against women. She wants to see more conversations happening much earlier, particularly in schools, around healthy relationships and the attitudes young people are absorbing about women.
If there is a sense that Zara feels responsible for what she puts into the world, that extends to how she makes the documentaries themselves. Because one assumption she would quite like to retire is that she simply arrives once somebody else has done all the work.
“I don’t just turn up on the day and present,” she says. “I’m as much in the pre-production and development as I am on the ground presenting.”
Often, she says, the idea starts with her. “I’m there from the seedling of the idea. Sometimes I even come up with the seedling of the idea, probably 80% of the time.”
She’s now increasingly moving into producing, but don’t expect a Zara McDermott media empire any time soon. “I wouldn’t say I’m an entrepreneur,” she says. “I’m a creative.” The distinction feels important to her. Zara is an ideas person: coming up with them, developing them and figuring out the best way to tell a story. The bit she finds trickier? Putting herself first.
“I’m always so scared of upsetting people,” she admits. But she’s getting better at backing herself, and recognising that having a say in where her ideas end up matters just as much as having them in the first place. “I think it’s important, especially as a woman in this industry, to create a path for yourself and create longevity for yourself.”
Eight years after she first appeared on our screens, longevity doesn’t look like much of a problem. And work isn’t the only part of Zara’s life that has changed considerably lately.
Something Great
That recent time in LA? Zara has been spending as much of it there as work allows. Louis’ son Freddie is based there, and the singer works hard to co-parent, making California a regular base.
The couple were first linked in early 2025 and, since then, there have been paparazzi pictures and occasional appearances in Instagram photo dumps, but remarkably little from Zara herself about what their relationship actually looks like. Given Louis’s One Direction fame, successful solo career and fiercely dedicated global fanbase, that hasn’t exactly stopped people being interested.
Shirt, With Nothing Underneath. Shorts, Adidas. Shoes, Jennifer Chamandi. Earrings and Earcuff, Otiumberg. Bracelet, Zara’s Own.
For now, splitting her life between the US and UK suits her. Her family, friends and work are all here, while LA has become another part of her life. But don’t expect a permanent move Stateside just yet. “I love the balance that we have right now,” she says. “It’s a beautiful balance of everything.”
And when she’s back in the UK? It turns out she and Louis are already living together.
“We’ve lived together for a while now,” she reveals.
When I ask how cohabiting has been, Zara doesn’t offer up so much as one irritating habit. “Honestly, it’s just been amazing. I genuinely can’t even say one thing,” she says, smiling. “He’s like my Prince Charming. He’s like my fairy tale.”
And if you’re waiting for the inevitable ‘but’, there isn’t one.
“He is genuinely the most amazing person I’ve ever met in my life,” she continues. “He’s an inspiration to me in so many ways. He is the most empathetic, considerate, kind person. He will always think about every single other person before himself, and I think that is such a rare quality to find in someone.”
He’s like my Prince Charming. He’s like my fairy tale.
Then comes perhaps the most emphatic declaration of all: “If everyone was a bit more like Louis, the world would be a better place. That’s what I genuinely think.”
It is the first time Zara has spoken at any real length about their relationship – and there are limits. How they met, for one, is staying firmly theirs. “That time for us is just so sacred,” she explains. “No one knows anything about our relationship. No one knows how we met. No one’s even seen us ever have a conversation.”
For two people capable of generating headlines simply by being photographed together, maintaining that privacy is quite a feat. Zara knows there is an appetite for more, particularly given the devotion that still surrounds Louis, but she has no interest in turning their relationship into something for public consumption.
Jacket, Maje. Set, PH5. Loafers, G.H.Bass. Socks, Falke.
“We’re obviously not a secret, but we’re not shouting from the rooftops about it,” she says, “because that’s actually a beautiful thing to have just for you.”
And what they’re keeping for themselves sounds surprisingly – and rather sweetly – ordinary. At home, she says, they’re generally on the sofa, watching television, having tea and biscuits.
Well, Louis has the tea. Zara doesn’t drink it. Dating a Yorkshireman has nevertheless required her to master the surprisingly exact science of making one. Her previous technique, inherited from her parents, was essentially to introduce a teabag to some hot water and hope for the best. Louis was having none of it.
“He was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Zara. You’ve not let it brew, babe. You’ve not let it brew.’”
The Tomlinson method? Yorkshire Tea. Water first. Two minutes. No shortcuts. “I literally time it for two minutes,” she says.
She’s now so committed that she travels with Yorkshire teabags, something she used to laugh at her mum for doing. Forget the grand declarations: if learning someone’s precise tea-brewing specifications isn’t romance, what is?
Of course, dating someone with Louis’s level of fame means their relationship comes with an audience. Every appearance together attracts attention and, with a fanbase that has been invested in him for well over a decade, Zara knew there would be scrutiny. Experiencing the sheer scale of it first-hand, though, has taken some getting used to, something she called an “adjustment period”.
“I knew that Lou was going to have a huge fan base, and his fan base are so protective and loving and supportive of him in every way,” she admits. “I understand their protectiveness. It’s like a fierce loyalty.”
It’s a relationship between artist and fans that long predates her, and one Zara is careful not to dismiss. She talks about the love between Louis and his fans as something reciprocal; becoming his partner, she shares, has meant learning to take “the good and the bad” that comes with it.
“It doesn’t mean that it’s not challenging at times,” she explains. “Of course it comes with its challenges.”
And perhaps that’s why those evenings on the sofa – tea brewed for exactly two minutes – matter. In a relationship where even the smallest public glimpse can invite attention, Zara has become deliberate about what remains theirs.
“That is why we don’t speak hugely about our relationship,” she adds. “Otherwise you open yourself up even more.”
Top and Skirt, Alémais. Earrings, Hugo Kreit at Koibird. Socks, Falke. Bag, Vintage Miu Miu at Cocoon Club.
There is something interesting about hearing this from someone whose adult life has largely played out in public. Zara knows what it is to have strangers invested in who you’re dating, what you’re wearing and what you’re doing next. It’s been a process of feeling out what her boundaries are.
In fact, while she’s protective of her relationship, being open to life and saying yes has been something of a family philosophy. Her dad raised Zara and her brother with one piece of advice: “You’ll only regret the things you say no to.”
It has stuck. “You never know where it could lead you,” she says. And looking at the slightly unexpected shape of her career so far, she has a point. Zara has rarely seemed particularly interested in staying in one lane – perhaps that’s why she’s quite content not to have her future all mapped out.
The big 3-0
With her 30th birthday two months away, you’d forgive Zara for having at least the beginnings of a five-year plan. She does not.
“I’ve just been thinking about how much pressure that puts on me. If I’d looked at myself five years ago, I’d never have predicted where I would be in my career, or what I’d be doing, or that I would be nine documentaries deep.”
For someone with quite so much going on, she’s refreshingly relaxed about not knowing what comes next. “You never know what’s around the corner. I think there’s something so beautiful about not planning too much and just seeing what happens.”
Coat, Charlotte Simone. Shoes, Kiana Ghavidel. Ring, Pandora. Earrings and Earcuff, Otiumberg. Socks, Calzedonia.
There is one thing she has become more intentional about, though: how she talks to herself. Zara admits she used to struggle with her self-worth and self-belief. Now, if she catches herself having one of those days in front of the mirror, she has a word.
If I’d looked at myself five years ago, I’d never have predicted where I would be in my career
“‘Shut up, Zara. Don’t be like that to yourself. You look lovely,’” she tells herself. “‘Actually, is it really that important what you look like today? No, it’s not. Move on.’”
Louis apparently tells her she sometimes lives in “a world of rainbows and unicorns”. “I love that for me,” she smiles. “Sometimes I’m so positive it’s actually to my own detriment.” Honestly, there are worse places to live.
So, if she could give her younger self one piece of advice now? “Don’t ever doubt your own abilities,” she says. “I’d probably tell myself to be a bit more positive when I was younger.”
And maybe that’s the biggest difference between the Zara of then and the one sitting opposite me now. Not a perfectly mapped-out career or knowing exactly what the next five years will look like, but trusting herself enough not to need to.
“It comes with age,” she says. Then she adds one more thing: “And self-security.”
Thirty seems like a pretty good age to take that with you.
Cooking With The Stars, featuring Zara McDermott, airs on ITV and ITVX on Mondays at 7.30pm
Jumper, Sandro. Bloomers, Lisa the Label. Loafers, G.H. Bass. Rings, Pandora. Bracelet, Zara’s Own. Tights, Swedish Stockings.
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Photography: Matt Moorhouse; Interview: Lisa McLoughlin; Stylist: Angel Cordova-Todd; Make up Artist: Charlie Fitzjohn using Lisa Eldrige Beauty; Hair Stylist: Jason Goh using Living Proof UK; Art Director: Alex Hambis; Editor in Chief: Claire Hodgson; Deputy Editor: Jess Edwards; Entertainment Editor: Alicia Lansom; Movement Director: Liam Hill; Lighting Assistant: Dominic Walsh; Digi Op: Igor Hill; Video Lead: Annabel Fraser; DOP: Cailum Khan; Production: Beverley Croucher