Love Island: Zayn Malik's Thailand girl Lauren Richardson on death threats and THAT picture

The woman at the centre of the storm surrounding Zayn Malik's time in Thailand has spoken out about the death threats she received during the scandal.

Lauren Richardson, who found herself thrust into the spotlight when she posted a photograph of herself and the former One Direction star in a Thai nightclub, will join the cast of ITV2's revamped Love Island this weekend.

But speaking to Digital Spy and others in Mallorca, Richardson admitted that she hasn't thought too much about placing herself back in the spotlight.

"If I think too much it hurts my head, so I try to just go one day at a time or one step at a time," she said. "I haven't really thought about it. I think I'll think about it more when I'm back because out there I have no idea what's going on outside me. Until I come out. Then I think I'll go, 'I'd better think about this now!'"

Richardson admitted that the photograph storm "got blown out of proportion", adding: "The picture was just a picture.

"I'd gone into the nightclub where he was, not knowing that he was in there. I'd gone in there because I think it was a free bar for three hours - that's the reason I was there!

"They were in the VIP area, so I managed to get in there. I don't know how I got into the VIP area because I looked like an absolute tramp - £3 pair of shorts from Dagenham market, hair scrunched up in a bun, no make-up on. I asked for a picture, had the picture and then I posted it and it went absolutely mental."

She added: "There's no juicy story behind it which I think everyone was dying to hear - it's just a picture."

Richardson laughed off suggestions that she's to blame for the break-up of One Direction, as Malik left the band shortly after the scandal.

"It's got nothing to do with me," she said, adding that there was "nothing there" in terms of an attraction towards the singer.

She revealed that they didn't even speak, saying: "Example was playing at the same time as we were in the VIP area, so we were all dancing, having a laugh, listening to Example. It wasn't, 'We're in a nightclub, let me have a full-blown conversation with you and find out what's your favourite food and what's your favourite drink'. It was just, 'Let me have a picture, let's carry on drinking, let's listen to some good music'."

But Richardson - who said that she has had no contact from Malik or his fiancée Perrie Edwards since the scandal - revealed that the backlash to her picture had been "intense" and admitted that she had received death threats.

"They just hounded me like, 'We hate you, you should die, you're a homewrecker'," she said. "They'd put little pictures up of gun faces - 'Share your location, we want to see you, we're going to hunt you down'. It was quite extreme at the time.

"My friend turned my notifications off because she was like, 'The best way is just to try and ignore it'. Every picture I put up, there's just hate on there... And even now, I could put a picture up today and there'd still be hate on my trail or people not liking what they see."

Richardson also revealed that on the day Malik left One Direction she'd been chased to work by the press, joking: "I had a 40-minute car chase round Walthamstow trying to get rid of them, which didn't work, as much as I thought I was Paul Walker! It didn't work in my Fiat. The worst thing is that my car is the mint green colour, so in traffic you can see me wherever I am!"

She explained that she had spent the day working in an office with no windows when her boss called to tell her the news of Malik's exit.

"He was like, 'Lauren, he's left the band', and I was like, 'Argh!"" she said, revealing that he'd let her go home early to avoid the press. "So there was the first lot of abuse and then there was the second lot - 'It's your fault, you've made him leave, if you didn't post the picture and stress him out...'

"You try not to take it to heart because it's not my fault he's left the band. It was more the comments that are more personal to me that you go, 'Ooh, that's not nice' - 'You're fat', or, 'You're ugly and your bum looks big'. It was a bit surreal."

But Richardson - who revealed that she will only talk about Malik on Love Island if she is asked - explained that she's hoping her time on the show will allow people to see who she really is.

"They've only seen me through a picture," she said. "No-one's ever heard me speak because I've never sold a story, I've never spoken about it publicly. So it's kind of an opportunity to go, 'Do you know what, get to know me as a person, see what I'm like and then if you still have a problem with me, write the stuff that you want to write'.

"With a TV show, you can actually see my personality... So hopefully it kind of gives everyone an impression that, 'She's actually a really nice, down-to-earth, bubbly girl that just does her job, earns a bit of money, goes out with her friends and just gets by in life'."

Richardson explained that she "didn't see the point" in selling her story earlier, saying: "I didn't post that picture for a story, to get money. It's not in my nature to do that. That's my picture, my voice - it's just something I didn't want to do.

"I'm only speaking about it now because going in [Love Island] I have to talk about it, otherwise I would probably still have kept it to myself and let people wonder."

But Richardson joked that her experiences haven't put her off getting celebrity selfies in future, saying: "I've had pictures with celebrities before, so for me it was just, 'Oh, another celebrity, put it on my wall'. Everybody else did the damage!"

Love Island begins on Sunday (June 7) at 9pm on ITV2.