Love & loneliness CANDY LANE'S BITTERSWEET ISLAND TELL-ALL

The dejected dancer couldn’t put a foot right with her castaway co-stars

- Rebekah Hebenton

For the past two months, Candy Lane has been battling it out on Celebrity Treasure Island, facing not only gruelling physical challenges but the shocking ageism of her own teammates.

And now that she’s one of the final six players left standing, the 61-year-old ballroom champion can talk openly about how blindsided she felt when her fellow competitors left her on the sidelines because of her age.

“That was a lonely feeling,” confesses Candy in an exclusive interview with the Weekly. “I get on really well with people of all ages, so it was unexpected to be dismissed by the younger group.”

The hit TVNZ 2 show saw 21 Kiwi celebrities stranded on a remote beach in Northland, where they faced the elements, sleeping in huts and living offnothing more than rice and beans, unless they were lucky enough to win a food challenge.

‘I don’t think they saw it as being as bad as it was’

Going into the reality competition, Candy suspected that being the oldest female contestant might lead her fellow competitors to underestimate her, but she never imagined just how quickly they would count her out.

Her standing was made clear early on when, despite saying many times that she would be great at that day’s challenge, her team ignored her and decided she would sit it out.

The mum-of-two, who once leapt from a helicopter into the ocean for a Bootcamp-style reality TV show, became visibly upset and admits it’s the first time in her life she’s been disregarded because of her age.

“I thought they would just take us as they found us,” explains Candy. “It was really surprising. I haven’t come across that before and it was a real eye-opener.”