Caroline Flack asked friends ‘Why are people so mean to me?’ after being trolled online

‘She was someone who felt things deeply, and the abuse left her very upset,’ said one of Flack’s friends

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One of Caroline Flack’s friends has spoken about the presenter’s reaction to the trolling she received.

Chantelle McMullen, who met Flack on a hike in LA in 2016, described her friend’s distress when faced with “vile, vindictive remarks” from strangers online.

Ms McMullen told how Flack “adored” working on Love Island but was left "very upset" after looking at social media after the show.

Writing in The Telegraph, she said: “When each series final aired, it felt like an amazing moment for her: she was so proud and would finish on a real high.

“Then she’d look on Twitter and read the comments strangers were making about her – vile, vindictive remarks, about the way she dressed and just about anything else they could think of to pick on.

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“She was someone who felt things deeply, and the abuse left her very upset.”

Ms McMullen added that Flack would ask her, “Why are people so mean to me?”

The close friend of the late star said she and Flack’s other friends would urge the 40-year-old to ignore the comments and “focus on positive feedback”.

She said: “Sometimes she’d try not to pay attention to the endless notifications on her phone.

“But often she couldn’t help looking, and the trolling left her feeling distressed and low. She seemed unable to simply block it all out.”

She continued: “Caroline was good at giving advice to others, and if it had been one of her friends receiving that abuse she would have told them to ignore it.

“But somehow she couldn’t apply this wisdom to herself, and her mental health consequently suffered.”

Flack died by suicide on 15 February last year. At the time, the star was keeping a low profile after being charged for assaulting her boyfriend in December 2019, for which she was awaiting trial.

A tribute to the presenter, titled Caroline Flack: Her Life and Death, airs on Channel 4 tonight. In the programme, friends and family of Flack speak about her death, her struggle with mental ill health and the challenges of fame.