OLLY Murs has paid tribute to his friend Caroline Flack, six days after she died.
The pop star and Caroline had been pals for years, hosting The X Factor and spin-off show The Xtra Factor, and he took to Instagram on Friday morning to share a heartbreaking acknowledgment of her passing.
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“Behind the clouds the sun is still shining,” he simply wrote alongside a picture of him lying on a beach, staring at a cloudy sky.
Caroline and Olly hosted The Xtra Factor together in 2011 and 2012, and their friendship and witty repertoire saw them become a hit with viewers.
After her success on Strictly Come Dancing in 2014, Simon Cowell asked Caroline to host The X Factor alongside Olly in 2015 – but critics branded their partnership a “disaster” amid a series of on-screen errors.
They only hosted for one series – Olly later revealed he was only signed on for a one-year contract – but he later admitted that they hadn’t seen each other “in a while”.
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Caroline died on 15 February by suicide.
In the days after her death, Olly shared memories of his friend, writing: “My heart is forever broken.. I’ve lost something today that I’ll never ever get back.. and that’s you.”
She was due to face trial in early March for common assault after an alleged attack in December on boyfriend Lewis Burton.
The 40-year-old maintained her innocence, and Lewis refused to cooperate with the prosecution, however the CPS continued with the case.
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On Wednesday, her family shared an unpublished Instagram post written by the star, in which she revealed she felt that the “walls” she had built around herself had “collapsed”.
Caroline, who was described as “vulnerable” by her management, stepped down from presenting the current winter series of Love Island after she was charged with assaulting Lewis, 27, at her flat.
Her bail conditions banned her from having contact with her boyfriend ahead of a trial next month.
In the post, she denied assaulting Burton, saying it was an “accident” and that she had “always taken responsibility for what happened that night”.
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“But the truth is … It was an accident,” she shared.
She had written that she had “been having some sort of emotional breakdown for a very long time”, adding: “But I am not a domestic abuser.
“We had an argument and an accident happened. An accident.”
Metropolitan Police has referred itself to the police watchdog following her death; it is standard practice for a referral to be made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct when a person dies or is seriously injured after recent contact with police, the force said.
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