Caroline Flack

Caroline Flack was an English actress, and a radio and television presenter.  Born in Enfield, London, on November 9th, 1979, she moved houses several times in her childhood, and received medical treatment for being "very underweight" whilst at school.  Between 1996 and 1999, she studied dancing and musical theatre at the Bodywork Company in Cambridge.  She began her career as an actress on Bo' Selecta in 2002, before presenting a variety of television shows including I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! NOW!, The Xtra Factor, and The X Factor.  Flack won the twelfth series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2014 with her professional partner, Pasha Kovalev, the couple earning the first perfect 40 mark in the semi-finals, followed by three more in the finals, to earn a previously-unmatched perfect score of 120 points. In her personal life, she dated Prince Harry in 2009, and also had relationships with One Direction member, Harry Styles, and the England international rugby player, Danny Cipriani; she was briefly engaged to reality TV personality Andrew Brady in 2018.  In 2015, Flack came fifth in FHM magazine's 100 Sexiest Women.  On December 13th, 2019, Caroline Flack was charged with assaulting her boyfriend - the tennis player, Lewis Burton - after an incident at her Islington flat the previous morning, in which she apparently hit him in the head with a lamp.  She allegedly confessed to the crime after police arrived, also warning that she would kill herself.  Four days later, she stood down as host of the ITV2 programme, Love Island.  It was later reported that Flack had been having "personal issues", and had been experiencing an emotional breakdown for "a very long time".  She pleaded not guilty to the charges at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on December 23rd, and was bailed on condition she did not contact Burton.  Although her boyfriend did not support the prosecution, Flack was due to stand trial for the offence on March 4th, 2020.  On February 15th, 2020, she was found hanged in her flat in Stoke Newington, London.  On August 6th, 2020, an inquest concluded that she committed suicide following a long struggle with "fluctuating mental health" that was exacerbated by the stress of fame.  Caroline Flack was the fourth person associated with Love Island to kill themselves, including former contestants Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis.  She was 40 years old.