Nothing caught the internet off guard quite like Molly-Mae Hague's Instagram story on 14 August. 'I am extremely upset to announce that mine and Tommy's relationship has come to an end,' she wrote to her 8.3 million followers. 'Never in a million years did I think I'd ever have to write this. After five years of being together I never imagined our story would end, especially not this way.'
Only three weeks earlier, Molly-Mae had shared a video from her and Tommy's engagement the year before. 'One year ago today I was tricked into going on a fake brand trip on which the love of my life would ask me to marry him,' she wrote. The clip showed Tommy getting down on one knee on a rose-scattered cliff top in Ibiza as Molly-Mae burst into tears with their daughter, Bambi, in her arms.
As social media's golden couple, and the most successful pair to come out of Love Island after meeting on the show in 2019, their fans were blindsided. However, watching Molly-Mae's new Amazon Prime series, Molly-Mae: Behind It All, which is now available to stream, it sounds like the breakup was a long time coming. In fact, Molly-Mae uses her series as an opportunity to go into more detail than ever before about what went wrong.
What did Molly-Mae say about her breakup from Tommy Fury in Behind It All?
Tommy's relationship with alcohol was one of the main reasons why they broke up
Molly-Mae and her mum revealed that Tommy's relationship with alcohol was a major factor in the breakdown of their relationship. Tommy recently gave an interview with Men's Health where he agrees that 'he let alcohol ruin his relationship'. The boxer claims he found himself on a downward spiral after getting injured a few years back. ‘2023 was the best year that I’ve ever had,’ Tommy said in his interview. ‘I won two multimillion pound fights. I got engaged, I had a beautiful baby daughter, the lot. And then, all of a sudden, I was in a hospital bed being told that boxing might not be a thing for me anymore.’
In her series Molly-Mae explains that she 'never ever wanted to be with someone who drank' because her mum had a period when she struggled with alcohol after her divorce. 'I was only about 14/15 when that happened. I saw my mum going through a vulnerable time so I have never been around [drinking] in a positive light.'
Tommy struggled to balance family life with wanting to go out
According to his ex-fiancé, Tommy tried to balance family life with 'the life of a 25-year-old boy with no responsibilities' and 'the two don't go hand in hand'.
In Molly-Mae's words, Tommy never 'had an alcohol problem' but alcohol certainly caused problems in their relationship. 'It got to a point where I wasn't really looking forward to anything because alcohol affected it so much.'
Debbie then recalls that she can only think of 'a couple of examples' where Tommy drank and 'it's not led to anything disastrous'. However, Molly-Mae says she can't think of any.
Tommy drank too much at Molly-Mae's sister Zoe's wedding
'At my sister's wedding, I literally pleaded with Tommy like I begged him to not drink,' she says before breaking down in tears. 'It's just really sad.' Zoe got married to Danny Rae on 6 July last summer, a month before Molly-Mae and Tommy broke up.
Did Tommy's drinking lead to cheating?
As for those cheating rumours, Molly-Mae keeps it vague. But she does not seem naive either. 'Over the past year or so I have become so much more aware of the things that have been going on that I was naive to for so long. I still don't think I know the full picture,' she admits. 'I think there's a lot I don't know.' At which point Zoe agrees, 'I think he was battling a lot more than we realised.'
Molly-Mae speaks about the rumours circulating online that Tommy had cheated – rumours he has repeatedly denied. 'The rumours that were coming out at the time, it was a lot,' she says. 'People genuinely believe everything they read because I was getting messages from people quite close to me saying we're really sorry to hear that he's gotten somebody pregnant. We're really sorry to hear that he's been with this person. And I was like, where is this coming from?'
Zoe and Tommy had a turbulent relationship
It turns out Zoe and Tommy also had a difficult relationship, partly because Molly-Mae has 'shared it all' with her sister without sparing any details. Zoe says she thinks Molly-Mae has been 'happier and nicer to be around' since the split. 'You've not got the stress that comes with being with him.'
'We definitely butted heads a fair few times about him going out,' she says, 'and me being protective of Molly. He was great with Bambi but he wasn't at the time being a great partner. That's what [Molly-Mae] potentially couldn't see.'
Debbie seems to echo this sentiment. 'There were going to be good times, but it was going to be rocky [if they stayed together]. Being married to Mr Fury was going to be rocky.'
She had to release a statement to make the breakup feel real
The reality star explains that with Tommy, she had said given him his 'last chance' with her one too many times, and it got to a point where she thought if she didn't publicly announce the breakup then she wouldn't go through with it. 'There's only so much you can take,' she says in her series. 'I decided I didn't have another night left in me lying in bed being upset. I thought I'm not doing this anymore. It was a situation of, if I don't post this statement, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to walk away unless I put this out. It needed to happen.'
She shuts down rumours that the breakup was a publicity stunt
The Love Island star said 'it's absolutely bizarre' that people would think the breakup was a publicity stunt or that she had timed it in tandem with the launch of her clothing brand. 'I wish it was one,' she told her producer. 'It would be a lot easier.'
Molly-Mae made sure to defend her relationship too, noting that it was real from the very first moment on Love Island. 'People often say with shows like Love Island, or any shows on TV, that it's fabricated and it's not the truth but that was real. We met on a TV show and we fell in love really quickly. We came out of the show, moved in together and went from strength to strength. We were in each other's pockets. It was a really special time and we went through so much together and we entered this whole new life of being in the public eye, together.'
In the first episode, Molly-Mae watches the first time she met Tommy back on her laptop. 'You're my ideal woman,' he tells her in the hot tub. 'I don't really believe in love at first sight, but I really fancied him,' she recalls. 'He was completely my type and he was just a really good looking guy.'
She went on explain how similar they are as people and how much they have in common, calling Tommy one of 'the softest guy's you'll ever meet.
They struggled with media attention from the beginning
Molly-Mae and Tommy’s relationship has been in the public eye since day one. She discusses how the media has exploited that at times, publishing stories about their ups and downs and adding fuel to rumours without any evidence. 'I think we were trying to have a normal relationship, but it just wasn’t really a normal relationship because it will always be in the public eye,' she reflects.
Throughout the series we see Molly-Mae and her publicist battle various stories and rumours on social media, many of which take their toll.
The breakup 'traumatised' Molly-Mae
In one scene where Molly-Mae is discussing the split with her mum, Debbie Gordon, she says she feels 'really traumatised' by the past couple of months. 'When I see him, I am angry at him and I am very hurt. I can't help that. I think he hopes in the future that we will be back together as a family.'
'And what do you think?' asks Debbie. Molly-Mae then responds to say she never wanted Bambi to come from a broken home like she did. Debbie then reminds her that Bambi, now two, is growing up quickly and if things 'stayed the same' she would see 'unpleasantness'. The Maebe founder then admits she preferred her parents relationship once they had broken up.
Molly-Mae's mum Debbie admits there were red flags
'I'm very, very fond of Tommy,' Debbie explains in the docuseries. 'He looked after Molly, he made her laugh, he treated her well and for quite a while that outweighed the not-so-great stuff that was going on.' She then tells Molly-Mae directly, 'Can I be completely honest? As much as I'm very fond of him, equally over the years there were so many occasions that I witnessed myself that made me so beyond worried about you.'
Debbie then told the camera that she thinks 'going through the turmoil and the heartbreak of a breakup' is not as bad as 'endless sleepless nights worrying'.
Molly-Mae feels like a single parent
Throughout the series, we see Molly-Mae navigating motherhood without her partner and saying she has at times felt like 'a single mum'.
She explains that the former couple are still in regular contact because of their daughter. We see them FaceTiming throughout the series to check on Bambi, something that no doubt makes the breakup more complicated.
'Cutting someone off enables you to heal and get over it, but Tommy and I have still been communicating because of Bambi.' In the first episode, we see snippets of them arguing on the phone while Molly-Mae is driving. 'What the fuck was that about?' she says at one point after hanging up the phone.
She wishes she could have launched Maebe with Tommy by her side
As for the launch of her brand, Maebe, Molly-Mae struggled going through that process without Tommy.
'I wanted to enjoy it with him,' she admits. 'Tommy himself watched me for the last three years do everything for Maebe and he was really, really proud and a huge supporter of it because he knew how important it was to me.'
She goes on to say she would have much rather launched Maebe while still in a relationship because the focus became all about the breakup, whether she was wearing her ring in pictures, and whether it was a publicity stunt. Molly-Mae says she was disappointed that the most liked comments on her Instagram posts about the brand were all to do with Tommy.
But there is a chance that Molly-Mae and Tommy will get back together
The reality star explains quite candidly that what has been getting her through the break up is 'the hope that me and Tommy will end up back together'. There is clearly part of her that holds on to the fantasy of their relationship and hopes they can work things out to keep their family together.
'My whole coping mechanism this past few months has been thinking that we will hopefully get back to a better place,' she admits in episode three. 'Right now, in this moment, I don't know what the future holds for Tommy and I, but I'd be lying if I said my love disappeared over night.'
She goes on to tell the audience that Tommy is working on himself and is trying to 'make things right'. However, later in the episode she confides in Zoe and says 'it's thing after thing' and that she and Tommy are 'going round in circles'. The first drop of episodes ends with Molly-Mae saying, 'How it's looking this week is that maybe we are actually just done.'
'All I want in this life is to be with him and have another baby with him and to grow old as a family and to live in a nice house together and to live a nice life together,' she adds. 'I’m kind of realising that maybe these problems are just not going to go away. Now matter how much I want things to fix themselves.’
Molly-Mae: Behind It All eps 1-3 is available exclusively on Prime Video. The latter three episodes will drop in Spring 2025.
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across pop culture, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things TV for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow shows with equal respect).