Caroline Flack’s death from suicide at age 40 shocked the British public and heralded a reckoning with how celebrities, especially women, are treated in the press and on social media.
Five years after her death, a new documentary spearheaded by her mother Christine Flack presents her view that her daughter’s death was due in part to the case’s handling by police and the press.
Here’s what we know.
July 2019
Flack, 39, the BAFTA-winning presenter of Love Island, begins a relationship with ex-tennis player Lewis Burton, 39. The two are spotted together in Soho in between Flack flying out to Majorca to film episodes of the dating show. Burton soon moves into Flack’s house in Islington.
12 December 2019
Police and ambulance services are dispatched to the Islington house after Burton calls 999 in the early hours of the morning. Burton tells responders “she tried to kill me”, after Flack woke him from sleep by hitting him with a phone clutched in her hand. But in the initial confusion, Burton and the police discuss whether a bedside lamp or a desk fan was used to strike him.
An inquest later heard that she told officers, “I had his phone in one hand and mine in the other. I whacked him round the head. There was no excuse for it. I was just upset. I admit I did it. He was cheating on me.”
Burton is treated for a head wound at the scene. Flack, who was found covered in blood with self-inflicted wounds on her arms, is taken to hospital for 12 hours before being taken to a police station. The inquest later heard the pair had a row that turned hysterical when Burton threatened to call the police. “If you call the police, I’m done,” Flack reportedly said; when he did, she harmed herself.
A neighbour alerts the press that Flack has been arrested.
13 December 2019
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decides to release Flack with a caution. But a senior Met officer that has come on duty appeals the decision and the presenter is charged with assault by battery. Burton says he doesn’t wish to press charges, but the CPS sets a court date and Flack is released on bail.
Afraid to return to her home and face media scrutiny, Flack books into a room in The Ned, a members club and hotel in the City of London.
19 December 2019
Flack steps down from her role of Love Island host ahead of first ever winter series “in order to not detract attention" from the ITV show. Laura Whitmore is confirmed as replacement host the next day.
During the documentary, texts are shown from Caroline to her friends and family. “I’ve lost it all and so publicly,” one reads, while a “Am lowest I’ve ever been in my life.”
23 December 2019
Hours before she is due to appear in court, Flack overdoses on prescription medication at her suite in The Ned after drinking everything in the minibar. Her agent and friends call a doctor and are advised to make her sick.
Flack appears at Highbury Corner magistrates court, where the press are waiting. The prosecutor alleges to the court that Flack hit Burton with a lamp and officers arriving at the scene described it as looking “like a scene in a horror movie”.
The prosecutor also alleges that Flack continued to hurl abuse at her boyfriend as she was questioned by police, threatening to kill herself before she flipped over a table and was pinned to the ground by officers.
Flack pleads not guilty. Burton re-iterates that he does not support the prosecution, but prosecutor Katie Weiss says the case will continue with the police’s bodyworn camera footage forming the basis of the evidence.
District Judge Julia Newton adjourns the case for a trial on March 4 and does not lift the bail conditions that prevent Flack from contacting Burton.
It’s at this point press coverage goes into overdrive.
“Initially the press coverage was quite factual,” series producer Sophie Clayton-Payne said in a Q&A about the show.
“Caroline was being hounded by paps but the actual coverage was factual. The tipping point was the magistrate’s hearing when the prosecutor referred to the ‘bloodbath’ and the lamp. There was a media frenzy and I think we saw the fallout of that on social media. The public enjoyed this fall from grace.”
31 December 2019
The Sun publishes a front page photo of the bedroom in Flack’s apartment that shows large amounts of her blood (all of it Flack’s, from her self-inflicted injuries). Flack later finds out the photo was taken by Burton and sent to an ex-girlfriend. At some point, someone sold the image to the Sun.
January - February 2020
Flack moves to a gated apartment complex in Stoke Newington. Her legal team continue to lobby for the prosecution to drop the case.
Some time in early February, Flack learns the court plans to proceed with the trial in March.
14 February 2020
Flack makes another suicide attempt on Valentine’s Day, overdosing on prescription drugs in her apartment. Her friends and family call London Ambulance Service paramedics, but Flack refuses to go to hospital for further treatment out of fear it would be leaked to the media.
15 February 2020
Flack is found dead in her apartment at 40 years old.
“By the time I arrived, the police were there, and Caroline was lying on the floor,” Christine told an interview with the Guardian. “They wouldn’t let me touch her. I’ll never forget that.”
August 2020
After an inquest, the coroner rules her death a suicide.
“Caroline Flack hanged herself at home on the morning of February 15, 2020 because of an exacerbation of fluctuating mental ill health and distress,” said Coroner Mary Hassell. “While her overall mental state had several causes, the act exacerbating it was as a result of press interest and publicity surrounding her forthcoming criminal trial.”
Detective Inspector Lauren Bateman says her decision to push for a prosecution instead of a caution was not motivated by Flack’s fame.
September 2021
Flack’s mother Christine presents the Caroline Flack Mental Health Hero Award at The Sun’s Who Cares Wins awards on Sunday night.
February 2023
The Metropolitan police apologise to Flack’s family over not keeping a record of the decision to charge her with assault. The police watchdog carried out an investigation after complaints from Christine Flack.
An IOPC review “did not identify any misconduct” in the Met’s decision, but recommended an apology over the lack of record-keeping.
April 2024
The Met says it will partly reinvestigate the lead-up to the decision to charge Flack with assault by battery.
“We won’t stop until we get the truth,” Christine Flack tells The Mirror. “Something very unusual happened to Carrie at the police station that night, but no one kept a proper record explaining why.”
November 2025
The documentary launches on Disney+. In her interview with the Guardian, Caroline’s mother Christine says that she hopes “this programme can set the record straight, and will aim to dig into why the police pushed ahead with a trial.
“I wish I’d done [an interview] before Caroline died. At the time, though, in the middle of it, we were being told to stay silent, that it would all be OK and the charges would be dropped. Caroline was telling me, ‘Mum, don’t say anything.’”
She also admitted having moments where she blames herself for her daughter’s death. “I’ve asked myself, ‘Why didn’t you do this?’ ‘Why didn’t you do that?’ Sometimes, if I’m low, I think about what she must have felt that day she died. That’s the part I hate the most.”
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