Caroline Flack hits back
Her body, career and relationship status have been tabloid catnip for years. Now, for the first time, she puts every rumour to rest ›
“I DON’T CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK ANY MORE”
says Caroline Flack, gesticulating wildly with a pair of sunglasses. She has a habit of talking quickly, like an excitable child, and has one of those laughs that gets you on side instantly.
We’re sat chatting at Soho restaurant L’Escargot, but midway through telling me how her outlook on life has changed lately, one of the most beautiful-looking Mediterranean men I have ever seen appears at our table with the steak and chips we have ordered for lunch. Caroline turns to me and whispers, “The French accent drives me insane! And the one before him...” She drops her jaw, feigning shock, before adding, “We were like...” That laugh again.
Anyone watching would think that I had known Caroline for years, to hear how uncensored she is today. Dressed in tiny shorts, an oversized camouflage jacket, and with a script for her new play perched on her lap, she tells me everything from why she loves her “womanly” boobs, to how she really fancies a Bloody Mary (it’s only 3.30pm). But, no, we’ve actually only met twice before and, as I’m quickly learning, this is just who Caroline is. Which is probably why people (and that includes me) are a little bit obsessed with her.
In a world where celebrities learn to be so guarded, Caroline, 37, refuses to bother. She’s accessible (just take a look at her Instagram account), makes it known that she loves a good night out, and is vocal about being as unlucky in love as the rest of us. And it’s perhaps that vulnerability that makes her so much more relatable than any A-lister. She is every girl.
And so when we saw her come under attack from trolls about her weight and presenting skills during a hosting stint on The X Factor in 2015, it made us feel uncomfortable. Same, too, when she was forced to hit back at bullies in 2012 after a One Direction fan magazine created a voodoo doll of her, and wrote about her “crow’s feet” and “zero engagement rings”, following the news that she was dating Harry Styles, 15 years her junior.
It’s a bit like watching a school friend being bullied.
Since her relationship with Harry was revealed five years ago, barely a week has gone by without headlines in the press shouting about some aspect of her life. So, with this in mind, we asked Caroline, who is back on ITV2 this month presenting a new series of Love Island, to talk us through the headlines to find out the truth behind the woman everyone seems to think they know so much about… “I don’t get what’s wrong with that! It sounds like a bloody good time. I was actually in Dubai, not Mexico. Gizzi Erskine and I had gone on a girlie holiday and I didn’t want anyone to know where we were, because [paps] will find you anywhere. So I put on my Instagram that we were in Mexico – the next day we pretended we were
in Brazil. We just kept tagging different locations and nobody found us!
After Strictly I wasn’t so lucky when I went to Jamaica for New Year’s Eve with my friend Lou. We were in this little hotel with hardly anyone there, and I said,‘Do you think we could go topless?’ She said,‘Yeah.’ A few days later, her ex-boyfriend called up and said,‘Have you seen that your boobs are in The Sun?’ We had been followed the entire time. I learned a good lesson, because there is nothing worse than being followed on holiday. I just want to put my hair in a topknot and be sweaty! The wild headlines are exaggerated, but I do like to live life to the full and I think that is really important. My dad always said to work hard, play hard and be kind, and that’s the way I think. I’m really social and still will be when I’m walking around with a zimmer frame going to bingo.
But I definitely went through a crazy stage as a teenager. I left home at 16 to go to theatre school [the Bodywork Company] in Cambridge. I lived in a house with 20 girls. I’d never really been allowed out or tried alcohol. The other girls were all 18 and they took me under their wing. We didn’t have any money but we still managed to go out every night and somehow get drunk on £1… The others used to have to try and get me into nightclubs, because I looked about 10 years old. We were young and it was brilliant, but I got to 18 and realised I’d had two mad years. I was more tame in my twenties.” “There was a furore after the last show in the series [viewers went mad after Caroline uploaded a picture to Instagram of her and Alex hugging at the Love Island wrap party]. It was silly, but funny, because his girlfriend [now fiancée], Olivia Buckland, was stood right next to us.
That day, I wrote on my Facebook page,‘Hey guys, if anyone wants
“Love Island viewers accuse Caroline Flack of ‘flirting’ with islander Alex Bowen in front of girlfriend Olivia”
“I don’t see myself as a victim – I have a good life” “I’ve taken a lot of Flack, but I finally feel comfortable in my own skin”
a laugh today, go on my Instagram and read the comments.’ This is just what happens with social media, and I’m used to it now. I don’t sit and dwell on it. Instead, I’m more like, ‘Oh, here we go again.’
I didn’t fancy anyone from the show last year and I don’t this year. You shouldn’t mix business with pleasure, unless, of course, you fall in love – you can’t help that, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I am there to look after the contestants, and see myself as an older sister to them all. It’s nice to work on a show with a bit of a buzz, and it was the same with X Factor, Strictly and I’m A
Celebrity… – you walk into a shop, and someone starts telling you,‘Oh, this person is my favourite.’
I love my work, and have always been a grafter. At school, I knew that I wanted to work in TV, but I came from Norfolk with no connections, so I had to find a way to do it. When I moved to London aged 19 after theatre school, it took me nearly five years to get my first TV job (as Bubbles on Leigh Francis’s Bo’
Selecta!). Until then, I had to do every job I could get to pay the bills: I worked in Pizza Express, was a magician’s assistant (he actually nearly chopped my ear off), filmed a self-defence video, made sandwiches in a café and even picked daffodils. I always found a way to earn money.
I’m a perfectionist with my work, and my dad always told me that knowledge is power, so I tend to over-learn things. When I co-presented the European Poker Tour [in 2004] with Colin Murray, I did an intense course so I knew what I was talking about, because I’m not very good at blagging. You’ve got to be prepared for when things go wrong. It has never worked against me, but it might annoy people a bit! At the moment, work is very busy with Love Island, and I’ve just taken on a lead role in a national musical theatre tour of Crazy For You, which means I have no weekends off until the end of the year. I don’t mind, though, it’s exciting.”
“I guess I have [taken a lot of flack], but I don’t see myself as a victim because I have such a good life. The media love a woman having a breakdown, and I can be sitting there at home reading that I’m going through one when, actually, I’m in my kitchen eating my cornflakes, about to go to the gym and having a right laugh watching Good Morning Britain.
There have been some hard times in my career, and it goes through peaks and troughs. The 2015 X Factor was the most challenging because it was difficult to fill somebody’s shoes [she and Olly Murs replaced Dermot O’Leary] on a show that is so loved. You couldn’t do right for doing wrong, or wrong for doing right, but you had to go out there and put your show face on. It’s pretty hard to go in every week and do your best when, sometimes, that isn’t good enough. But you win some and you lose some, and you’re not going to go home, cry and quit, because that’s not the way the world works. People say, ‘You must be really angry,’ but I’m not. I’m thankful for
“The X Factor 2015: Caroline Flack hits back at body-shaming comments on Twitter”
the opportunities. You have to spin it in your head to be something positive, and can’t walk away feeling bitter.
I am very content right now. Waking up at the moment feels like a nice thing to do, whereas when I’ve had bad times, it is the worst part of the day.
I have ups and downs, and mood swings here and there, but that’s normal. I think it has a lot to do with my age. When I reached 34, I suddenly got a big dose of not caring what people thought any more. It takes a while to learn, but you do eventually become more comfortable with who you are and [become] proud of your achievements. Now I’ve got more confidence when it comes to my body, work and meeting people. This is who I am and people can either accept that or not. This expectation of being perfect is what has got everyone going crazy.” “This was a bit like when you have a bill to pay and you decide not to open the envelope because you know it’s going to be a lot of money. I knew that there were lots of comments from people because my Twitter account was going mad, but I didn’t want to look – reading negative comments is futile. And then one night, lo and behold, I opened that envelope. And it was exactly what I thought it was going to be [one tweet read,‘Either Caroline Flack is preggers or she had a big meal before the show’]. What did those people want me to do – get a new body and face?
People on social media need to get a life. It can’t be a good feeling saying nasty things like that. If I make a throwaway comment to someone, I end up feeling awful afterwards and go home thinking about it. Imagine doing that all the time!
Weirdly, I’m more comfortable in my body now that I’m 37 than I was when I was 22. Back then, I thought I had cellulite. I didn’t, and I wish I had just walked around in a bikini all the time. I’d quite like that body now, please.
These days, I’ve found a better balance. I like to go out but I also love to go to the gym and eat healthily. There was a time when I would go on a retreat for a week, then go and indulge for two weeks, then go and do another retreat.
I see a PT three days a week now and she’s changed my life – she’s half-personal trainer, half-therapist. It’s about finding a happy medium, and I’d rather keep it consistent,
although holidays should be for indulging and having a glass of rosé.
I’m still self-conscious, though, and think I always will be about certain things. I became really obsessed the other day that I have really odd-shaped nostrils, and then I noticed that none of my face is actually symmetrical. But I can’t be sad about my wonky face, because I’m not going to get another one, am I? I’ve got seven nieces and nephews and, as you get older, things like that become the priority, not how you look. I definitely don’t think of myself as beautiful – I do alright and I get by, but I’ve got funny old teeth and wonky eyes. But then I’ve always been about humour over looks. I’ve never been the prettiest or the cleverist, but I’ve always been able to make people laugh.”
“Olly Murs: Caroline Flack and I will get hitched if we’re both single at 40”
“Jesus, we haven’t got long left, have we? We made that deal back when we were presenting The Xtra Factor [in 2011], and didn’t realise we’d both be single. We did it as a joke, and now we’re like Julia Roberts (in My Best
Friend’s Wedding)! I probably won’t marry Olly. If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now. Sorry, Olls. There was a point, on the first day we worked together on
Xtra Factor, that we did fancy each other. We spent the whole day flirting outrageously. We thought something was going to happen at the judges’ houses, but it didn’t, and that was it. That ship sailed really early on. I hear stories about people who fall in love with their friends, but I can’t imagine it. Kissing Olly would be like kissing my brother.
In the future, I’d love to be a mum, but I don’t know how it’s going to happen just yet. I’m not against doing it on my own, but I’m also not against doing it with someone else.
I’ve actually only just started dating again, because I did a year-long relationship detox, which I started at the end of 2015. It wasn’t like I planned it or told people, I just woke up one morning and decided to give up for a month so I could focus on other things, like buying a new house, my career, friends and family. It was because, at the time, I wasn’t feeling my best and I needed to clear my mind and give myself time to breathe.
Basically, I was stuck in a rut. Since my twenties I had moved from one relationship to the next. Never had I given myself time to heal. Something had to change. Essentially, I put myself into relationship rehab.
Relationships can be draining, make you lose your confidence and take a lot out of you. And you can be tainted when you come out of something long-term. So it was nice to have time on my own, and when I started I wasn’t in the right place to go out with anyone anyway.
I was never somebody who’d go out on the pull but, in that year, instead of going on dates, I’d see friends. And if anyone asked me out, I’d be like, ‘I’m free in a year!’ Not that I got loads of offers, but I did now and again.
I’m not talking about my sex life, [but] you do the maths! It came to a natural end after a year because I’d achieved all the things I wanted to. I’ve learned a lot, and now I’m a bit more fussy when it comes to dating – I know what I want.
My friends try and set me up with people, which is very sweet, but I’m like,‘I’m OK!’ I am dating again now – maybe I’ve already [met someone]… Let’s just say, I’m in a brilliant place.”
Love Island hits screens nightly this month on ITV2; the Crazy For You national theatre tour begins in August