Caroline Flack: Searching for the Truth review – an unsettling look at the turmoil the star has experienced in recent months | Caroline Flack

HeyOn the evening of February 15, 2020, news emerged that TV presenter Caroline Flack had been found dead in her home in London. Nearly six years later, her death by suicide remains shocking. Caroline was one of Britain’s most beloved hosts, best known as the face of Love Island UK. She has also presented The X Factor, winning the twelfth series of Strictly Come Dancing alongside Pasha Kovalev. In addition to her enviable television career, she had a kind of girl-next-door ease that made viewers feel as if they knew her off screen as well as on it. However, in the months before her death, her career seemingly began to unravel, as she faced assault and battery charges against her boyfriend, Lewis Burton.

This new series comes from the makers of the 2021 documentary Caroline Flack: Her Life and Death. While that film sensitively addressed the emotional issues Flack has struggled with since adolescence, Searching for the Truth focuses firmly on the months following Burton’s alleged assault in December 2019. Caroline’s mother, Christine, analyzed the evidence and spoke to experts — including Caroline’s former publicist and a former DPP, who once referred to the case as a case of domestic violence. Christine’s goal is to ascertain whether her daughter has been treated differently by the justice system because of her identity. In other words: Did Carolyn’s public profile turn a charged disagreement between a couple over accusations of infidelity into something with far more serious consequences?

You may be wondering what duty of care the show makers have to Christine and, indeed, to the entire Flack family. Fortunately, the search for truth is neither exploitative nor cheap. It’s clear that Kristen hasn’t just been parachuted into the series’ lead: the episodes offer a window into the work she’s been doing since her daughter’s death. She had no qualms about contacting the Sun news desk, or analyzing her findings to former Metropolitan Police detective Jess McDonald. Christine is steely, strong and determined. She says she wants justice, and “will do anything to clear Caroline’s name.” The result is a two-parter that feels comprehensive and legitimate, an antidote to the true crime gravy train that usually flows through cases like this.

The inconsistencies pile up thick and fast, leading Christine to believe that her daughter caused Burton minimal physical harm, but became an example of it (allegations strongly denied by the police and DPP). What’s more, she believes the tabloids added fuel to an already smoldering fire by publishing photos of a bedroom covered in blood — blood that actually belonged to Caroline, not Burton. The scene was likened in the press to something from a horror film. While Burton received no medical treatment, Carolyn spent 12 hours in hospital due to self-inflicted injuries.

The message here is not that women don’t mistreat men. Rather, based on all the official documents Christine examined, Caroline was not a homeowner, but rather a woman in the midst of a mental health crisis. Her emotional state was in turn exacerbated by media coverage of the case, not to mention the intense speculation on social media, some of which we see here. As soon as the prosecutor mentioned at a court hearing that Caroline had hit Burton with a lamp, the press and public went into a frenzy. Christine recalls that the Sun newspaper published an article (later deleted after Caroline’s death) about a Valentine’s Day card containing a caricature of Caroline and the words “I’ll light you up”. Christine says she has found no convincing evidence that her daughter hit Burton with a lamp. The Sun says it has reported responsibly at all times.

We hear many raw testimonies from Molly, Caroline’s best friend, one of the first people to raise the alarm when she was unable to contact her on the day of her death. There are also glimpses of texts and voice notes that Caroline was sending, as she began to grow increasingly anxious about her future.

As poignant as these elements are, I don’t think they are designed to cynically tug at viewers’ hearts, but rather to transport them directly into the isolation and fear of Caroline Flack’s final months. One day, Nazir Afzal – a former DPP prosecutor – saw this case as an open-and-shut case of domestic violence; When he meets Christine, he finds it difficult to understand why Caroline did not simply receive a warning from the police. On the one hand, Christine says, it’s validating to hear. On the other hand, it makes it more difficult, knowing that things could have been so different.

Caroline Flack: In Search of Truth is available now on Disney+.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or by emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the United States, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, chat at 988lifeline.org, or text HOME at 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the Lifeline crisis support service is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org