ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall has said Caroline Flack ‘s suicide left her “absolutely devastated” after the Love Island host took her own life last month.
Speaking at a conference in London today, McCall spoke on how the network has upped its duty of care for the people starring in its shows after Caroline died on February, Saturday 15, after she killed herself.
The star stepped down from hosting the winter series of Love Island after she was arrested on December 13 for an alleged assault on boyfriend Lewis Burton.
Caroline, 40, was arrested after an alleged attack on Lewis, 27, and shared on her Instagram that it was her choice to take a step back from the popular dating show.
Caroline Flack leaves Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court where she plead not guilty to assaulting boyfriend Lewis Burton (Image: PA)
McCall said today at the event: “I think the thing about Caroline Flack is that ITV are absolutely devastated by what happened to her.
“So many people at ITV knew Caroline, including me, and it was unbelievably tragic. I think that we can never know what is behind suicide. It is not in any way simple. It is a very, very complex thing.
“We take advice from (mental health charities) Samaritans and Mind and we will continue to do that.”
Dame Carolyn McCall said she was ‘devastated’ by Caroline’s death (Image: Getty Images Europe)
Caroline and Lewis strongly denied the charges against the host, but the day before Caroline took her own life she discovered that the Crown Prosecution Service was pursuing a court case against her.
Continuing, McCall said: “As far as duty of care is concerned, we are absolutely focused on making sure our duty of care is, for both our participants and for our talent, world class. We want to be best in class for that.
‘I think because we reviewed Love Island last summer, so a few months before last summer’s series, Paul Litchfield, who is the former CMO, works with us, and he made a whole load of recommendations which we have implemented, which is about aftercare, which is about casting, which is about a whole range of things – financial management, social media management.
Caroline took her own life on February, Saturday 15 (Image: PA)
“Social media is the thing that has gone absolutely ballistic. It has actually only happened in the last three years, because in the first two years (Love Island) was too small.
“It wasn’t really a successful programme. It has only really made a big difference in the regionals three years ago on social media.
“We take that very serious and we are actually working with the industry on how we can share all of that and how we can learn and pool our resources, so we can learn from each other. So that is what we are doing.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
