So far, the improved system has managed to avoid any further tragedy, even as Love Island USA has become one of the most-watched TV shows in America. Season seven cast member Toby Aromolaran, who subsequently starred on All Stars and both seasons of Love Island Games, knew going into the Villa, “I’m on national TV; I’m giving up my privacy.” Still, he says, “Nothing in the world can prepare you for what you experience when you come out of the Villa. As nice as ITV is, nothing can actually prepare you for it really. It’s just how you deal with it, I think.” As a source close to production told VF for my previous feature on the show, “I suppose people need to be aware that things pass very quickly. You can be in the moment with something, and it can feel like it’s probably never going to go away.”
“She’d have her highs and lows, and you always worry about that,” Christine says of her daughter. “I don’t think Carrie had that brain that [went], ‘Oh, if I take this pill, I’ll feel better. Get me through the day.’ It was, ‘Oh, I’m going to take lots of pills, and then I won’t feel like it anymore.’ It was just ‘cut out all feelings.’ And it does. If only we could say [to her] that it does pass, and everything does pass.”
“I think if she’d have been a different type of person, she’d be here today,” Christine adds. “I think you see lots of people get over things, get on with their life and their careers. But that wasn’t Carrie. She wasn’t that type of person that could get over it.”
If Life and Death answered the “why” of Flack’s suicide, Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth gives viewers the “how.” The two-part documentary, which premieres on Disney+ and Hulu on November 10, begins with Christine’s understandable desire to clear Flack’s name, prove she wasn’t a domestic abuser, and show that the case had been mishandled by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Metropolitan Police, and the British press.
Christine’s quest was a personal one until Curious Films, director Christian Collerton, and producer Sophie Clayton-Payne reached out last year about a follow-up to the previous doc about Flack. “Before Caroline passed, she spoke with Curious Films about doing a documentary series, and she wanted it to be about clearing her name and her reputation,” Collerton tells VF. “We know that she wanted her story to be told and her voice to be heard. I felt reassured by that, that Caroline would want this story to be told, and it had to be authentic in order for that to really carry any weight.”
