My daughter Caroline Flack kept her mental health battle a secret – TV bosses should have looked after her better
CAROLINE Flack's heartbroken mum Christine has opened up about how her daughter should have been looked after better by TV bosses before her tragic suicide.
Now she wants fans to remember the “fun” side of popular Caroline — with friends and family rallying around to put on a star-studded festival, Flackstock, to raise money for mental health charities.
Christine hasn’t watched Love Island — the ITV2 show her daughter hosted — since Caroline’s death but keeps her memory alive by talking about her at home and lighting a tea light at bedtime.
She says: “The duty of care with presenters needs to be better.
“If you work in an office you’re safe-guarded, but on TV you’re not — you’re exposed.
“Now, two years on, I still dream about her all the time. Things happen and I think, ‘that’s Carrie’.
“I always keep a little battery tea light turned on for Carrie next to me, whatever I’m doing, and they usually last four days and then I replace it.
“But when I was away for three weeks, I only took one with me to have next to my bed, and it lasted the whole time. Why? There are loads of little things.
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“I always talk to her in my head. Like with this festival, I think, ‘What have you got me into?’
“We talk about Caroline all the time, she is still part of the family. We chat about her and laugh, saying ‘What would Carrie have said about this?’”
“Carrie isn’t a taboo subject. We laugh about all the things she was late to as well — the big family gatherings I planned — and I’d look around going, ‘Where’s Carrie?’ And she’d roll in from a festival.
“She’d come in for five minutes and everything would be upside down and then she would go. But at least she was there and with us.”
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Caroline was just 40 when she took her life in February 2020.
Three months earlier, she had been axed from the show in the wake of a drunken row with her boyfriend, Lewis Burton.
The popular presenter — who had previously spoken about her mental health anguish — was replaced by Laura Whitmore.
Loving mum of four Christine — who also has kids Lizzie, 52, Paul, 51, and Caroline’s twin sister Jody, 42, says: “Love Island thrived on arguments and they probably still do, I haven’t watched it since.
“But when it came to Caroline, they sacked her because of her love life. It was totally wrong.
“I watched it because Carrie was on it and I loved it because she absolutely loved it. She loved the crew and the contestants. It was ironic when her love life was in trouble.”
Christine reveals that Caroline, who was diagnosed as bipolar weeks before her death, kept her mental health issues a secret as she was worried about being judged.
She said: “I think Carrie didn’t say anything about her mental health publicly because she didn’t want anyone to know.
“That was part of the condition. You’d have massive highs, but then when you’re low it’s bad.
“I hope people who are suffering realise that of course it is OK to feel like that.
“I think Carrie didn’t think she was normal when she had those moods. People say, ‘Oh you’re mental’ and that is such a trigger to someone who is going through something.
“It’s isolating, so it’s important to look at the language we use.”
Following Caroline’s death, Christine received floods of letters from people touched by her daughter and fellow mental health sufferers.
Now they leave them at a memorial bench the family had made in the woodlands near Christine’s Norfolk home.
She says: “At the very beginning I had lots of people reach out to me.
"I have got boxes of letters that have been sent. Even now, people send them.
“People leave letters at Carrie’s bench. One man left a box there with a pen and a book to write in.
“He had come all the way from Edinburgh, and he left a letter to say, ‘Is it alright?’
“Where her bench is in the woodlands, you can’t have plastic so we have re-created the box into a wooden box painted by Caroline’s niece Willow. Inside is a book that people write it. We just leave it on the bench.
“It’s surprising how many people write in it, even if it’s not about Caroline, but about themselves. It’s not just being able to talk about mental health, but it’s people actually listening.”
One of Caroline’s last Instagram posts read: “In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
It inadvertently spawned the #BeKind social media hashtag.
‘Fight negativity’
Christine says it is more important than ever to remember those words.
She explains: “It’s so easy to say, ‘Be kind’ that it’s said flippantly now, but it’s so true and so important.
“If there is something you don’t like about someone, just don’t say it.
"It’s so easy to say something horrible. I talked to Caroline a lot about social media, and wrongly advised, ‘Don’t read it’. But that doesn’t mean anything to someone that is looking at it all the time.
“She was on her phone all the time. Only the bad things were going in and it was so hard.
“I think that’s why she posted that Be Kind post. She’d even say that to me, ‘Why are you saying anything about that person if you don’t have something nice to say?
“It seems the culture of being negative online exists and I think we need to fight against it.”
For now Christine has been focusing her energy on organising the inaugural Flackstock, with Caroline’s friends, including fellow presenters Natalie Pinkham, Dawn O’Porter and Leigh Francis.
The festival will take place in the grounds of Englefield House near Reading on Monday, July 25, in support of charities Mind, the Samaritans, Choose Love and the Charlie Waller Trust.
Performers include Natalie Imbruglia, Louise Redknapp, Tom Grennan, Lucie Jones, Pixie Lott, Fleur East and The Overtones.
Plus Dermot O’Leary, Paddy McGuinness and Joel Dommett will make appearances.
It will be a fitting tribute to festival-loving Caroline’s zest for life.
Big Flack and fries
CAROLINE’S close friend, TV host Natalie Pinkham, created Flackstock after having a dream.
She then went about sourcing sponsorship from Caroline’s favourite fast food outlet, McDonald’s.
Natalie says: “I had this dream one night and rang Christine to see what she thought.
"I felt it was really important for her and the family to have something positive to focus on.
“I wanted something that was collaborative. We’ve got this Whatsapp group that we set up to share ideas.
"Lots of people didn’t realise but Caroline loved McDonald’s, and Christine said it would be great to get them involved in the festival but didn’t know how to make it happen.
"I feel there have been so many serendipitous moments, as a few weeks later I got offered a job with them out of the blue (to speak at a McDonald’s panel).
“I was able to pitch to the CEO and he said, ‘Done’ I was so nervous! Now they’re bringing a big McFlurry truck and serving ‘Big Flacks’ from it. It’ll be great.”
- Tickets for Flackstock at Englefield House near Reading, Berks, on July 25, are via .
Christine said: "We want to remember Caroline in a fun sense. She was really funny at home, she was always doing some silly dance then her twin Jodie would join in. I’ve got so many videos of them both being silly and laughing, I still watch them.
“She would find humour in everything, even if I said to her, ‘Have you got the bins bags?’ She’d start singing a song about bin bags.
“The festival is a really positive thing for all of us. Carrie loved festivals — then there was always the Glastonbury outfits and new wellies.
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“My grandkids love dressing up in Carrie’s clothes, especially Willow, she is just like Carrie — it’s so sweet. They miss her terribly, but they love wearing her clothes.”
Christine added: “I’ll always cherish her lovely yellow dress that she wore on Love Island. I remember her smiling in it, she was in her element.”
YOU'RE NOT ALONE
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost to suicide.
It doesn't discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society - from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It's the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes.
Yet it's rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
That is why The Sun launched the You're Not Alone campaign.
The aim is that by sharing practical advice, raising awareness and breaking down the barriers people face when talking about their mental health, we can all do our bit to help save lives.
Let's all vow to ask for help when we need it, and listen out for others... You're Not Alone.
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
- CALM, , 0800 585 858
- Heads Together,
- Mind, , 0300 123 3393
- Papyrus,, 0800 068 41 41
- Samaritans, , 116 123
