Caroline: ‘I’VE BEEN TO HELL AND BACK’
The presenter has revealed her battle with depression
The cliché stands: don’t believe everything you see on Instagram. Caroline Flack’s profile, for example, would have you believe she is always smiling and happy, living a life full of fun, fashion and parties. But last week, the Love Island presenter revealed that the truth behind the post can often be a darker picture. In fact, she’s bravely opened up about enduring years of hell, battling panic attacks and depression, and becoming “too reliant” on medication.
The 39 year old’s most difficult period began in 2014, when she should’ve been flying high. She’d just won Strictly Come Dancing, landing the highest-profile job on telly – fronting The X Factor – soon after. But instead, she couldn’t leave the house. “It all started the day after I won Strictly,” Caroline said. “I woke up and felt like somebody had covered my body in cling film. I couldn’t get up and just couldn’t pick myself up at all that next year. I felt ridiculous, being so sad when I’d just won the biggest show on telly and had such an amazing job. However, I felt like I was being held together by a piece of string, which could snap at any time.”
After suffering a panic attack, minutes before she had to go onstage to present The X Factor alongside Olly Murs, Caroline was prescribed anti-depressants. But she told no one. “I didn’t want to be a burden,” she admitted. “It was a really lonely place. While anti-depressants can work for some people, I became a little too reliant on them – if you forget to take one, you feel awful.” And
‘I was just in this numb state – I stopped laughing’
while she says the drugs “helped me get up in the morning, and stopped me from being sad”, they also stopped her feeling anything at all. “I was just in this numb state. I stopped laughing at jokes, and that’s just not me. I came off them after six months, as I realised feeling something was better than feeling nothing at all,” she says.
But coming off medication proved to be just as turbulent for the star, who recently split from her fiancé, reality star Andrew Brady. She says, “It was like going round a roundabout about 300 times. They’re a whirlwind for your body. I remember being at the photo shoot for my book cover and having to sit down because I was so dizzy. I couldn’t tell anyone the reason – that I was coming off anti-depressants. I eventually went to a juice retreat in the Mediterranean to wean myself off them. ”
And after years of feeling that she had to fake it, things are looking brighter now for Caroline, who last week began a brand-new role – starring as Roxie Hart in West End musical Chicago. She’s also returning to Strictly for the Christmas special and is, of course, fronting Love Island ’s reunion special. She adds, “I have a great life, a lovely house, and I know I am very lucky. I don’t want anyone to ever think I am a victim, because I’m not.” ■