Heartbreak toll on lovelorn Caroline
CAROLINE Flack took overdoses as a teenager and suffered badly with depression when her love life went wrong or relationships ended, a Channel 4 documentary reveals.
It examines events leading to her suicide and her struggle after being charged with assaulting her boyfriend and losing her job as host of TV’s Love Island.
Twin sister Jody, 41, spoke about the early signs of problems when she ran away from home after breaking up with her first love – an older man she met at a fairground.
She said: “We didn’t know where she was, and she’d gone to his house and you know was banging on his door. She really really struggled, emotionally, she was very, very depressed.
“And then that’s something, that pattern carried on for ever. She really did find heartbreak impossible.
“Each serious boyfriend, she sort of took a lot of tablets and drank a lot, ended up in an A&E situation. And she really didn’t think she could cope with that feeling. She was quite fascinated by the subject of suicide always. I knew that about her.”
Her mother Christine, 70, told of an overdose by Caroline at 16 after a “long relationship” ended. She said: “We got a call that she had taken some pills and she spent time in hospital. “Then you could tell that it wasn’t right. “You know, her reaction wasn’t right. She didn’t handle heartbreak well.” Caroline stepped down from Love Island, weeks before she died aged 40, and sobbed on camera: “I’ve lost my job, the job I’ve worked all my life on. I’ve never hurt anyone. The only person I’ve ever hurt is myself.”
Friend Anna Blue said: “All the things she’d worked for, all the 20 years, were gone overnight. There wasn’t a Plan B.” Former X Factor colleagues Olly Murs and Dermot O’Leary also talk on the show.
● Caroline Flack: Her Life And Death is on Channel 4 at 9pm on March 17. Call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.