Miss Great Britain Zara Holland stripped of title over sex on ITV2 show Love Island

Zara Holland has been stripped of the Miss Great Britain title on Thursday (16 June 2016) by the organisation after she was pictured having sex on ITV2 reality show Love Island the evening previously. The organisation said it had "no choice but to make this decision under the current circumstances."

"As an organisation we have not taken this decision lightly, we are close to all of our winners and wherever possible stand by them during our reign," they said in an official statement. The runner-up will instead be crowned as Miss Great Britain for the rest of this year.

Holland was seen on the ITV2 show having sex with newly arrived contestant Alex Bowen. In the show, presented by Caroline Flack, beautiful single people are taken to a mystery island where they are expected to pair off – and contestants are eliminated until a final couple wins £50,000.

The Miss Great Britain organisation said: "We wholly understand that everyone makes mistakes, but Zara, as an ambassador for Miss Great Britain, simply did not uphold the responsibility expected of the title."

They said that Deone Robertson, who holds the Miss North Lanarkshire title, would be crowned Miss Great Britain after coming first runner-up in the pageant.

They then later tweeted: "To be clear we have no problem at all with sex – it is perfectly natural. We simply can't condone what happened on national TV".

Caroline Flack said she felt sorry for Holland on Twitter, saying "What even is 'miss GB'? Are we living in the dark ages?"

Holland is reported to have expressed regret at her actions, saying: "You know when you're in the moment and it just happens. That's really not like me at all. Why couldn't we have just gone to sleep?"