'Caroline loved love': Love Island dedicates final to Flack with tearful tribute from Laura Whitmore
Host Laura Whitmore said coming to terms with Flack's death had been "extremely difficult".
Monday 24 February 2020 05:13, UK
Love Island dedicated the final of its first winter series to Caroline Flack, with a 90-second tribute to the late presenter.
Flack took her own life and was found dead in her east London home on Saturday last week.
The show did not air last weekend as a mark of respect to her family but it returned on Monday with a tribute to the 40-year-old who had started hosting the programme in 2015.
The series and live final was hosted by Laura Whitmore, who said: "The past week has been extremely difficult coming to terms with the loss of our friend and colleague Caroline.
"We're thinking of her family and everyone who knew her at this time."
Her voice broke and she was tearful as she added: "Caroline loved Love Island.
"She loved love and that's why tonight's final is dedicated to her."
The tribute was followed by a montage of Flack's work on the show and its companion show Aftersun.
According to reports, contestants on the show were not told of Flack's passing until yesterday.
Finley Tapp and Paige Turley were judged the winning couple after two months of couplings, dumpings and drama at a villa in the South African city of Cape Town.
They beat three other couples - Luke Trotman and Siannise Fudge, Luke Mabbott and Demi Jones, and Ched Uzor and Jess Gale - to claim the £50,000 prize, which they will share.
It was confirmed that there would be a new season of the show in the summer, filmed in its traditional destination of Majorca.
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Last week, Flack's family released an unpublished Instagram post she wrote days before she took her own life, ahead of the opening of an inquest into her death.
In the statement, she wrote that her arrest for assaulting her boyfriend Lewis Burton, 27, last year, meant "within 24 hours my whole world and future was swept from under my feet".
Flack was due to stand trial in March for allegedly attacking Mr Burton with a lamp at her flat on 12 December, despite him saying he did not support the prosecution.
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