Caroline Flack’s mother speaks about the weeks before her death in a new documentary

Next Wednesday, March 17, a new documentary marking the one-year anniversary of Caroline Flack’s death will air on Channel 4.

Caroline Flack: Her Life and Death features friends and family of the presenter, including her mother Christine and twin sister Jody. In the documentary, they revealed that Caroline had struggled with depression her whole life, and found the breakdown of romantic relationships ‘impossible.’

“She struggled emotionally, she was very depressed,” Jody says in Caroline Flack: Her Life and Death. “That pattern carried on forever. She really did find heartbreak impossible. Each serious boyfriend, she took a lot of tablets, drank a lot, ended up in an A&E situation a lot of times. And she really didn’t think she could cope with that feeling. And so I think it was her trying to control it.”

“She was quite fascinated by the subject of suicide always, and I knew that about her, so it was a worry for a long time, and something I tried to get my head around for a long time. So it’s something that’s in my life that I’m prepared could happen.”

Caroline’s family and friends say that the relentless negative tabloid stories and social media trolling seriously impacted her mental health, and that Caroline would constantly keep track of both.  “You can’t get away from it, it follows you home, it follows you on your phone,” says Christine Flack. “And Carrie was the worst one, she’d look at her phone all the time, it took her over, what was being said.”

In the weeks leading up to her court case, Caroline was terrified that her depression was going to be made public, her mother says. Christine says Caroline “went to different doctors all the time”, so nobody could find out about it.

“She was so fearful of anybody knowing anything and printing it,” says Christine. “I think she realised that everything was going to be in the press, and everyone was going to find out she had these dark moments, and she didn’t want people to know that.”

“Someone else could’ve probably dealt with it, but she couldn’t. She just hated the thought that people thought she was this awful person. Even when she’d taken pills as a young person, she didn’t want anyone to know she got down. And I know they say, ‘Everyone’s talking about it now.’ But I think a lot of people with depression don’t talk about it. You’re either ashamed of it, or you’re frightened that they’ll think something about you. So I think people are still frightened to say it.”