The Tragedy of Caroline Flack

Caroline Flack was a bright and bubbly presence on the British television scene. Her North London loquacity landed her into a prominent position as a presenter on such reality shows as Strictly Come Dancing and The Xtra Factor. Then came Love Island, which secured her status as a household name. In 2018, Love Island won a BAFTA award. But Flack, like many figures who entered the dark covenant of a well-paid celebrity resonating with a large audience, was someone who became a target for the tabloid newspapers — most prominently, The Sun, one of Rupert Murdoch’s rags. (After the tragedy that was to come, The Sun was deleting its most savage articles and, with high hypocritical gloss, pretending as if it had always been a Flack booster and that this vulgar meatgrinding outlet actually cared about the mental health and wellbeing of its targets.)

Despite all this, all seemed to be going well for Flack. At least on the surface. Until the police were called during the early morning hours of December 12, 2019. Neighbors had heard shouting and scuffling. And Flack’s boyfriend, a very tall 27-year-old tennis player named Lewis Burton, was believed to be the victim of assault by Flack. The media disseminated images of a bloody bed. Various reports speculated that the dried pools of blood had come from Flack smashing a glass, receiving a deep cut from a major vein. Both Flack and Burton were sent to the hospital to receive treatment.

It’s difficult to know precisely what happened or who was in the wrong, but we do have enough details to draw some conclusions. Burton reportedly shouted, “Bruv, I was normal until I met her,” to the police as he was being escorted to a waiting car. Neighbors reported six police cars and a police van showing up to Flack’s home in Islington. If the 999 tapes are ever released by the Crown, we will have a better idea of the tone. What we do know is that Burton told the emergency dispatcher that Flack was trying to kill him, that he had received a significant blow to the head from a lamp. “She is going mad,” said Burton. “Breaking stuff. I’ve just woken up. She’s cracked my head open.” Flack believed that Burton had been cheating on her. She could be heard screaming, “It’s all your fault! You’ve ruined my life!” Burton told the operator, “She tried to kill me, mate.” We also know that one of Flack’s ex-boyfriends, Andrew Brady, posted an NDA — dated March 14, 2018 — that he had been required to sign, with the hashtag #abusehasnogender. (Brady’s NDA posts have since been scrubbed from Instagram.) We also know that Brady had also called 999 when he grew concerned about Flack threatening to kill herself.

It’s clear that Flack, at the very least, suffered from significant mental health issues and suicidal ideation. In an October 14, 2019 Instagram post, Flack described how she kept many emotions to herself. “When I actually reached out to someone,” wrote Flack, “they said it was draining.” Flack, like many people who suffer from depression, said that “being a burden is my biggest fear.” It’s also clear that the television producers who profited from Flack wanted to keep these treatable problems under wraps, lest their big star be revealed as less than pristine. After all, the quest for money always takes precedence over a troubled person’s wellbeing.

But the alleged assault was enough for Flack to be dumped from Love Island, replaced by Laura Whitmore. Burton, for his part, publicly stated that he did not support prosecuting against Flack, who plead not guilty. The two had only been dating for less than a year, but we also know, from a September 3, 2019 interview with Heat Magazine, that Flack was pining for marriage and kids. The relationship with Burton may have been driven by certain manic qualities from Flack. In the Heat interview, a third party reported that Flack was “moving at 100 miles a minute” and the two were described as having “insane chemistry.”

The press — particularly The Sun — kept ridiculing Flack with impunity as she faced the burden of losing her primary gig and the indomitable attentions of the Crown Prosecution Service, who was set to begin trial on March 4th. It remains unknown if the CPS was motivated by significant evidence that they planned to introduce into court to prosecute against Flack or that the so-called “show trial” represented the bounty of landing a big fish. We do not know if Burton, like Brady before him, was coerced into silence by Flack’s handlers. But the only conclusion that any remotely empathetic person can draw here is that Flack needed significant help and that the intense scrutiny was too much for her to bear, as she posted on Instagram on December 24, 2019, and that this needed to stop — for the sake of Flack herself and all who loved her. Burton and Flack wanted to be together, but Flack was banned from having any contact with her. Burton defied this ban on Valentine’s Day, posting a message on Instagram reading “I love you.”

Two days later, Flack was dead. It was a suicide. She was only 40 years old.

Many celebrities have blamed the British media for contributing to Flack’s incredibly sad decline. I would respectfully suggest that these well-meaning people are thinking too small. This is the third suicide that Love Island is responsible for. Two previous contestants — Sophie Gradon in 2018 and Mike Thalassitis in 2019 — also took their own lives after bloodthirsty attention from the media. It is estimated that at least 38 people have died because of reality television. It’s clear that creator and executive producer Richard Cowles and producer Ellie Brunton showed no compunction as they lined their opportunistic pockets and are also partly to blame for these three deaths. They willingly preyed on the hopes and dreams of presenters and contestants, meticulously designing a television show that would be received by the Fleet Street scavengers with a sociopathic motivation for maximum ridicule. In other words, Cowles and Brunton engineered a show acutely harmful to human life. Love Island should be canceled immediately.

It is also clear that there is something significantly warped and cruel about the Crown Prosecution Service’s process. When you ban two people from having any contact with each other right before the holidays, and one of those people suffers from significant mental health issues and is already under intense scrutiny by News Group jackals, then this is callousness writ large. Even if the CPS had significant evidence to prove that Flack had willfully assaulted Burton, then it certainly had an obligation to ensure that Flack was safe and provided with care and not harmful to herself or others before carrying on with their trial.

One must also ask about the people who Flack surrounded herself with. Flack clearly had a history of erratic behavior. Did they do anything to get her treatment? Did they adjust her schedule so that she could get well? Or were they, like Cowles and Brunton, more driven by the sizable paychecks rather than the common decency of helping a troubled person to get well? Flack was tearing apart her home on December 12th. Was this the most violent she had ever been? How much of this violence could have been stopped if the television industrial complex had considered the greater good of getting a star presenter the treatment she needed?

I am not arguing that Flack’s alleged assault should never have been investigated. But, goddammit, nobody needed to die over this. Our moral obligation for mentally troubled people is to offer compassion and the opportunity to seek treatment so that they can live long, happy, and fruitful lives. But today’s cancel culture advocates are swift and casual in their gleeful zest for vituperation, refusing to comprehend that their targets are flawed human beings capable of contrition and self-examination. The people who have done wrong in the collective eye are truly doing their best to conquer their demons and curb their harmful behavioral patterns. But the media — The Sun and the unchecked harassment, the calls for permanent debasement, and the death threats that profit-motivated sociopaths like Jack Dorsey heartlessly refuse to curb on Twitter — is contributing to a culture where help and forgiveness are increasingly being eroded. How many people have to die before we address the problem? How many lives have to be destroyed before we acknowledge that giving people treatment and a second chance is also an essential and ineluctable part of social justice?

5. Compassion Fatigue (The Gray Area)

Emma is a top-notch psychiatrist who can change the lives of the most difficult patients imaginable. But there’s a great personal cost to her formidable talents that she’s not telling anyone about, an internal torment eating away at her inner life that she’s hiding from her patients and her professional peers and that a quiet survivor of an abusive relationship may just have the answer for. (Running time: 25 minutes)

(This story contains intense and emotionally disturbing scenes that may unsettle some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.)

Written and directed by Edward Champion

CAST:

Emma: Colette Thomas
Jenna: Devony DiMattia
Jack: Jack Womack
Gordon: Michael Saldate
Receptionist: Zachary Michael
Subway Preacher: Albert Hastler

Music by Thomas Ragsdale
Houston Person, “As Time Goes By” (courtesy of Free Music Archive, CC)
Sound Design and Editing by Edward Champion

Foley Sources: Edward Champion and nofeedbak (CC).
Subway Sounds Recorded on Location in Brooklyn, New York

Special thanks to Sacha Arnold, Austin Beach, Christopher Byrd, Claudia Berenice Garza, Pam Getchell, Jen Halbert, Gabriella Jiminez, Argyria Kehagias, Pete Lutz, Lauren Nelson, John Osborne, Rina Patel, Marc Anthony Stein, That Podcast Girl, Tim Torre, Georgette Thompson, Jack Ward, and many others I may have inadvertently forgotten for their invaluable help, feedback, kindness, inspiration, and support during the production of this episode. I would also like to thank the psychiatrists and compassion fatigue experts who I spoke with on conditions of anonymity for their considerable assistance with this story.

Thanks for listening!

2. Brand Awareness (The Gray Area)

Joanna loves Eclipse Ale. It’s the best beer in the world. She has boxes of Eclipse memorabilia. She regularly wears Eclipse baseball caps. But on one rainy night, Joanna discovers that this happy relationship (along with the relationship with her boyfriend) is not what it seems. Why can’t she remember what her boyfriend gave her on their second anniversary? And why doesn’t anybody know about Eclipse Ale? (Running time: 28 minutes)

Written and directed by Edward Champion

CAST:

Joanna: Eileen Hanley
Greg: Charlie Harrington
DJ: Peter Coleman
Sam: Marc Eliot Stein
Ignacio: Kilgore Lehrer
Receptionist: Zachary Michael
Leslie Stevens: Lauren Shippen
Bar Background: Hans Detlef Sierck, Jan Jensen, Sam Lowry

Edited by Edward Champion
Foley Sources: Edward Champion, PlooQ (CC), lebcraftlp (CC), Sandermotions (CC), Leandros Ntounis (CC), LG (CC), magnus589 ()CC), GowlerMusic (CC)

Theme Song: Pachyderm, “Never Knew Me at All” (licensed through CC, found at Free Music Archive)

Music: Milton Arias, “Gracias,” Valery & The Greedies, “She-Wolf,” Jahzaar, “Scenes from the Zoo,” Ben Sound, and Kevin MacLeod, “Carpe Diem,” Ben Sound, “Funky Element” (all licensed through CC, found at Free Music Archive, Ben Sound, and Incompetech)

Art: Claudio Sepúlveda Geoffroy (CC)

Special thanks to Sacha Arnold, Austin Beach, Matthew Boudreau, Jason Boog, Christopher Byrd, Kate C., Christian Caminiti, Claudia Berenice Garza, Pam Getchell, Jon Grilz, Jen Halbert, Gabriella Jiminez, Pete Lutz, Philip Merritt, Pacific Obadiah, John Osborne, Rina Patel, Michael Saldate, Raia Savage, Alex Schawrtzberg, That Podcast Girl, Georgette Thompson, Jack Ward, and many others I may have inadvertently forgotten for their invaluable help, feedback, kindness, inspiration, and support during the production of this episode.

Please be sure to also listen to Philip Merritt’s Lost in Williamsburg, which gave me a major editing idea that completely altered the bar scene, Jon Grilz’s Creepy, and Pacific Obadiah’s Lake Clarity.

The Bat Segundo Show: Julie Klausner

Julie Klausner most recently appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #330. Ms. Klausner is most recently the author of I Don’t Care About Your Band

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Dodging dubious-minded vegans.

Author: Julie Klausner

Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming]

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: I actually wanted to ask you of your keen interest in the Muppets.

Klausner: Yes.

Correspondent: You know, I was very interested in this. You have a great affinity for Miss Piggy.

Klausner: Yes.

Correspondent: But you have a problem with the Miss Piggy-Kermit wedding — particularly the line, “What better way could anything end. Hand in hand with a friend.” You insist that this represents Kermit’s preference for guys, or going out with the guys, instead of having a commitment.

Klausner: Sort of. Or that he, in other words, how he feels about her deep in his heart is almost like how he feels about Fozzy.

Correspondent: Yeah, but…

Klausner: That she’s a friend of his more than anything else. And that she’s not special, I guess.

Correspondent: But you’ve developed an entire theory about your life based off of this. And this caused me some confusion.

Klausner: It’s normal, right?

Correspondent: Well, well, I mean, I want to just poke holes in this.

Klausner: Sure. Poke away.

Correspondent: First of all, you have Miss Piggy voiced in a high-pitched tenor by Frank Oz.

Klausner: Frank Oz. The great, the great Frank Oz.

Correspondent: Yes. And Kermit the Frog by Jim Henson.

Klausner: M’hmm. Rest in peace.

Correspondent: Depending upon how obsessive a Muppets fan you talk to, it’s kind of a bromance thing more than a romance thing.

Klausner: Interesting. Interesting.

Correspondent: So therefore your whole childhood theory may very well be….

Klausner: About a man in drag.

Correspondent: …despoiled by what was going on underneath the Muppets.

Klausner: That’s interesting. So let me ask you this. Do you think of Miss Piggy as a man in drag? Or do you think of her as a lady?

Correspondent: I think of her as a wonderfully poly-gender, polysexual queen.

Klausner: That’s a beautiful answer!

Correspondent: But I’m just wondering if this had occurred to you. Because you’ve seen The Muppet Movie so many times.

Klausner: Oh my god. I love the Muppets. And I’m a huge fan of the Muppets. And my interpretation of the relationship between Kermit and Miss Piggy is — I mean, it’s obviously cheeky. I’m not going to go around and be like, “Children shouldn’t watch this filth! It’s going to give them bad ideas!” But I remember identifying with their relationship as being very — it resembled a lot of the dating experiences that I had. Which is that I was always chasing this sort of skinny guy that was more interested in his friends and his projects and his band or his show than me. And it’s interesting this way to think of Miss Piggy as a drag queen. As Frank Oz. Because drag queens are sort of hyperfeminine in that glamorous jewelry and perfume. And fabulous performers. And all of it.

Correspondent: I’ve seen that karate chop deployed in the Castro.

Klausner: I’m sure you have. And you know what? I don’t even know where the target was. But it was probably well deserved.

The Bat Segundo Show #330: Julie Klausner (Download MP3)

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