Zara Holland

Zara Holland
Born	Zara Holland (1995-08-24) 24 August 1995 Kingston upon Hull, England
Nationality	British
Education	Hull Collegiate School
Occupation(s)	Television personality, model
Years active	2014–present
Television	Love Island (2016)

Zara Holland (born 24 August 1995) is a television personality, model, and former Miss Great Britain. She is best known for taking part in reality show Love Island on ITV2, which lead to her being de-crowned of her Miss Great Britain title. She was due to compete in Miss World in Malaysia in November 2016.

Life and career

Zara was born in Kingston upon Hull and grew up in North Ferriby and attended Hull Collegiate School where she studied fashion. Her first TV appearance was when Holland appeared on ITV soap Emmerdale, aged 18. Holland's breakthrough was in 2014 when she competed in "Miss Hull" and went on to win the pageant. In June 2016 she took part in ITV2's Love Island; while on the show she went on a date with contestant Alex Bowen, and performed a sex act on him. She was subsequently stripped of her Miss Great Britain title 2015/2016.

In a statement issued, Miss Great Britain organisers said: "We feel we have no choice but to make this decision under the current circumstances. Although Miss Great Britain is the oldest pageant system in the UK, we pride ourselves on promoting the positivity of pageants in modern society and this includes the promotion of a strong, positive, female role model in our winners." The stripping of her title led to some controversy among the public and feminist groups as to why she was punished for utilising her body in the way she desired. Presenter Caroline Flack took to Twitter to say that Zara is "a very sweet girl" and ask "What even is Miss GB? Are we still living in the dark ages?" while Radio Times branded the decision "totally hypocritical".