Megan Barton-Hanson

Megan Leah Barton-Hanson (born 6 March 1994) is an English television personality and sex worker. She is best known for appearing on the fourth series of Love Island.

Born in Southend-on-Sea in Essex, Barton-Hanson endured bullying as a teenager, and suffered from severe mental health problems, for which she underwent therapy; she also underwent cosmetic surgery during this period, and operated an OnlyFans account. Her appearances on the fourth series of Love Island, on which she and Wes Nelson placed joint-fourth, brought her further abuse, after which she made multiple appearances on television, including multiple other dating shows. Vice described her in December 2020 as one of the "very few openly bisexual women in mainstream reality TV". In March 2020, she reactivated her OnlyFans account, which cost her work opportunities but in 2020 was the ninth highest earning account on the platform, and in 2023, she spent a short period on Love Island Games, on which she and Kyra Green formed the franchise's second same-sex pairing.

Early life
Megan Leah Barton-Hanson was born on 6 March 1994 in Southend-on-Sea in Essex, and has a brother, Kurtis. Her father is an insurance broker. In secondary school, she suffered from bullying for her appearance, and underwent otoplasty in an attempt to stem the abuse, only for her to be bullied for that instead. She also suffered from slut-shaming from the age of sixteen, first by prospective dates, and then by her friends after admitting to having previously masturbated. Around this time, she underwent six sessions of therapy on the National Health Service.

After leaving school, she trained as a personal assistant, before working for a fashion designer and as a social media manager. Aged nineteen, she underwent rhinoplasty, followed by breast augmentation and lip and cheek fillers, and later had veneers installed. She also spent about a year as a lap dancer, as well as periods as a stripper and as a webcam model, and had an OnlyFans account around this time. In January 2018, having suffered depression since she was thirteen and adopted an internet persona and used retail therapy to make herself feel better, she began suffering from suicidal ideation, and asked her mother for permission to end her life. She later underwent therapy, and has credited it with teaching her coping mechanisms that worked.

Love Island
On 10 June 2018, she appeared on the fourth series of Love Island, having applied unsuccessfully for the third, and having deleted her OnlyFans account at the producers' behest. She appeared with Eyal Booker, Wes Nelson, Alex Miller, Dean Overson, and 33 other contestants. She applied for the show thinking it would make her famous and that the money she would earn on the program would make her happy. Over the 50 days she was on the programme, she entered into relationships with Booker and Nelson, slept with both, coupled up with Miller, slept in his bed, kissed Overson, and coupled back up with Nelson, with whom she came joint fourth.

The speed at which she coupled up with Nelson after dumping Booker, and the fact that Nelson was coupled up with Laura Anderson at the time, earned her the sobriquet "Muggy Megan", after the previous series' Muggy Mike, who would commit suicide in March 2019; the online store Getting Personal responded by selling "Muggy Megan" mugs. Additionally, whilst on the programme, pre-surgery pictures of her from when she was a teenager resurfaced, causing her to experience abuse. In a March 2019 interview with i, she noted that the abuse had predominantly come from women, who she criticised "for picking apart the appearance of a teenager". The negative coverage of her in the press prompted an ITV press officer to take her into a room after she left to describe every negative story that had come out about her.

Post-Love Island
Barton-Hanson and Nelson remained together after the series ended, with Barton-Hanson moving into Nelson's flat, and the pair later moving into a flat in Camden. In January 2019, shortly after Nelson's first live show on that year's series of Dancing on Ice, the pair announced that they had broken up and would be co-parenting their hamster, citing differences in priorities; a flare-up of depression caused by the pressures of Love Island fame, a burglary, and her break-up with Nelson prompted her to later undergo cognitive behavioral therapy.

In May 2019, she stripped naked for The All New Monty: Who Bares Wins, and the following month, she came out as bisexual, having delayed doing so due to having worked in the sex industry, and to avoid feeding into the LGBT stereotype of bisexual promiscuity. In July 2019, she appeared on Joel Dommett's ITV2 game show Hey Tracey!; while on the programme, she was asked out by Stephen Bear, who she declined. She then appeared on that year's series of Celebs Go Dating, later dating that series' Demi Sims, the sister of fellow The Only Way Is Essex co-star Chloe Sims. The pair later appeared on Eating With My Ex, a BBC Three show where ex-partners debrief their relationships, and were described in December 2020 by Vice as two of the "very few openly bisexual women in mainstream reality TV", alongside Chloe Ferry and the cast of The Bi Life. Barton-Hanson then appeared in the music video for "Time to Talk" by Chelcee Grimes, who she later also dated.

OnlyFans
In March 2020, after experiencing boredom during lockdown, she revived her OnlyFans account; charging $24.99 per month, she uses her account to upload intimate photographs and collaborations with photographers and makeup artists, and for a tip, replies to subscribers. By November 2020, she had made No. 9 on the OnlyFans Rich List, a ranking of highest-rating earners on the platform; she was later able to buy a three-bedroom house in London and furnish it using the proceeds. Explaining herself on Kathy Burke: Money Talks in July 2021, she stated that she made between £20,000 and £70,000 each month, and that she had between two and three thousand followers on the platform; however, in 2023, she stated that her presence on the platform had caused her to lose out on "countless jobs", as companies and agencies were disinclined to work with her.

Later ventures
In mid-November 2020, she launched a podcast, You Come First, where she discussed aspects of her life, such as stripping, bisexuality, and OnlyFans. She later dated James Lock, with whom she later broke up, appeared on the second series of Celebrity Ex on the Beach with in 2022, and broke up with again. In May 2023, she appeared on The Big Celebrity Detox, but left after one episode, and in September 2023, she used an Instagram story to note that she was suffering symptoms of pelvic inflammatory disease.

In November 2023, she and Eyal Booker appeared on Love Island Games, a derivative of Love Island, with Barton-Hanson joining on day two. While on the programme, she coupled up with Kyra Green of Love Island USA 1, in doing so becoming the franchise's second same-sex pairing since the format launched in 2005, after Katie Salmon and Sophie Gradon, the latter of whom had committed suicide in June 2018. On 12 November, the show's narrator Iain Stirling announced that Barton-Hanson had left the programme on medical grounds. She declined to enter the following year's Love Island: All Stars on the grounds that the series' men were not attractive enough.

Social media
Barton-Hanson maintains an Instagram account, which as of December 2020 had 1,700,000 followers, most of which were women. She uses her account to dispense advice on sexual stimulation, worthwhile sex toy purchases, coming out, how to approach women, and repairing troubled relationships. In December 2020, Emma Garland of Vice wrote that she had "carve[d] out her own lane somewhere between an influencer, a celebrity and a Cock Destroyer". A spike of abuse while she was on Love Island season 4 led her delegate to disable comments due to the death threats and slut-shaming she was receiving. In October 2022, her account was suspended for sixteen hours for violating the site's terms of service.