Caroline Flack's moving unpublished post released: 'Within 24 hours my whole world was swept from under my feet'
Following the suicide of former 'Love Island' host Caroline Flack, her family has released an unpublished Instagram message that the 40-year-old had penned days before her death, in which she said that the alleged assault on boyfriend Lewis Burton, for which the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was pursuing a court case against her, was an 'accident.'
Although her advisers had told Flack not to make the post public, her family decided to release the same to the Eastern Daily Press, a local newspaper in Norfolk where she grew up, in order to give her supporters and fans a better understanding of the state of Flack's mind before she decided to take her own life.
Flack was found dead in her London flat on Saturday, a day after being told the CPS was pursuing the court case against her. An inquest heard how Flack hanged herself inside her Stoke Newington flat.
"On December the 12th 2019 I was arrested for common assault on my boyfriend... Within 24 hours my whole world and future was swept from under my feet and all the walls that I had taken so long to build around me, collapsed. I am suddenly on a different kind of stage and everyone is watching it happen. I have always taken responsibility for what happened that night. Even on the night. But the truth is... It was an accident," she wrote in the post.
Burton was hit over the head with a lamp as he was sleeping after she found texts on his phone which had enraged her. Although Burton was the one who alerted the police, telling them on the day of the incident, "She’s trying to kill me, mate," he later stood by his former partner throughout the court case, despite being banned from contacting her.
Now, legal experts think that she was suffering from mental health issues that were aggravated after she found out before Valentine’s Day that CPS planned to pursue a trial against her despite her legal team filing an appeal.
Even during her fight with her boyfriend, the former 'Love Island' host displayed signs of mental instability as she resorted to self-harm. In fact, her self-inflicted wounds were so deep that he was taken to hospital and underwent urgent treatment for 12 hours before she was deemed fit enough to be interviewed by officers.
Police bodycam footage had captured Caroline in the moments after the incident, which showed her being in a state of undress, severely distressed and covered in blood. The fact that there was a possibility that the bodycam footage would have been shown in the court during her trial might have played a role in Flack choosing to take her own life.
"But I am NOT a domestic abuser. We had an argument and an accident happened. An accident. The blood that someone SOLD to a newspaper was MY blood and that was something very sad and very personal," Flack added in the Instagram post. "The reason I am talking today is because my family can't take anymore. I've lost my job. My home. My ability to speak. And the truth has been taken out of my hands and used as entertainment. I can't spend every day hidden away being told not to say or speak to anyone."
After apologizing to her family and friends for the distress that she had caused them, Flack ended the post with: "I'm not thinking about 'how I'm going to get my career back.' I'm thinking about how I'm going to get mine and my family's life back."
Explaining why her family had decided to release the social media post after her death, Flack's mother, Chris, said: "Carrie sent me this message at the end of January but was told not to post it by advisers but she so wanted to have her little voice heard. So many untruths were out there but this is how she felt and my family and I would like people to read her own words. Carrie was surrounded by love and friends but this was just too much for her."