Chatting over Zoom from her East London home, Lou Teasdale’s face softens as she remembers the time she and friend Caroline Flack descended on an old people’s home to spread a little Christmas cheer.
Talking about the antics she got up to with the charismatic TV presenter in 2017, Lou tells Metro: ‘Caroline just marched in, with her dog Ruby, and we did the bingo, the quiz and served food.
‘We’d got in touch with loads of PR brands, so we had lots of presents to hand out to the residents. It was a really lovely day and was her way of giving back.
‘She was just fun and really funny. I miss her all the time, but especially around Christmas,’ she adds.
Lou is no stranger to the celebrity world, having made headlines recently for her tumultuous on/off relationship with footballer Andy Carroll. But five years after losing Caroline to suicide, she is keen to talk about their friendship and focus on raising awareness on World Suicide Prevention Day.
The pair first met in Camden in their twenties when they were both ‘running around being party girls’. They became close when Caroline was presenting The X Factor and Lou was a stylist on the show, bonding over their single status as friends paired off, got married and had children.
‘We were the same age, but single and struggling to find the right match at the time. While everyone around us was settling down, we were both working till midnight pretty much every day,’ remembers Lou.
To ward off the loneliness, she and Caroline would celebrate holiday seasons and New Year’s Eve together, with trips, holidays, and bingo with the elderly.
‘We were very like-minded and just really good mates. While months might go by without seeing each other, we just slipped right back into it when reunited. We were like this little old couple going on holiday together.’
Caroline was as warm and smiley off-screen as she was on, Lou adds.
‘One of the reasons she was so popular on TV was because she was just as people saw her, one of the girls in your girl gang. She was relatable, you know, she wouldn’t always take her makeup off before bed. She was real, not like a celebrity, just normal. She was really cool.’
However, Caroline was a celebrity and faced intense scrutiny in the public eye. When the TV presenter was arrested in December 2019 for allegedly assaulting her then-boyfriend, Lewis Burton, her friends and family watched as she spiralled into the depths of despair.
Caroline stepped down from her job hosting Love Island that same month, and the Met Police launched an investigation.
‘Everyone around her felt it,’ Lou remembers. ‘She was facing it as best she could. I was with her most days. But a negative story about her would come out, and then there would be these trickles of comments and DMs that would really affect her. It was so sad to see someone frightened to leave the house.
‘Then there would be a more positive article, and she would get supportive messages, and it would make such a difference to her mood, and she would be just like, “Come on then, let’s go Christmas shopping”. And she would be able to cope that day.’
In early December that year, Caroline posted on her Instagram the words: ‘In a world where you can be anything, be kind’. – a mantra that would go on to become synonymous with the star and a hashtag used over 3 million times just that year.
‘People make mistakes. People are human. Sometimes people face criminal proceedings, but usually they can go to work, and maybe no one really knows it’s even going on,’ Lou says.
‘And even then, it’s scary; you feel like you might lose everything. You’re thinking – what are people going to think of you? And you can’t sleep at night.
‘For Caroline, it was all played out in the press with every single person giving their opinion. It just became something she couldn’t face.’
On 14 February 2020, Caroline heard that she would be prosecuted and would face a trial. Lou and friend Mollie Grosberg went straight round to her Stoke Newington flat to find the TV presenter barely conscious on the sofa.
They called an ambulance, but when paramedics arrived, Caroline denied she had intended to kill herself. Worried about their friend, Lou and Mollie stayed overnight but left the following morning after Caroline got angry with them for calling paramedics.
The following day, Caroline was found dead at her home. Ten days later, the CPS closed the assault case.
Ruling suicide, Coroner Mary Hassell said Caroline, 40, had taken her life after an ‘exacerbation and fluctuation’ of ill health and distress.
In the weeks that followed, Lou witnessed the shame, guilt and conflict that can emerge following a suicide. Amid her own shock and disbelief, she even had some acquaintances claim there were things she could have done to save Caroline.
‘We were there, and we were doing everything that we could. But I had lost two friends to suicide in the years before that, and when you’re in that position, you realise that with the services that are available in this country, it’s not always that easy,’ says Lou.
‘If you had a loved one with a physical illness or injury that needed stitches, that would never fall on family, friends or employers. Whereas, when it comes to mental health, it does.
‘Even where we did have some professionals intervening with Caroline, there was still lots of babysitting, and there really wasn’t anywhere for it to be escalated to. It just falls on those who aren’t qualified. I’m a hairdresser! It felt very much like I didn’t have a clue what to do.’
In the five years since, Lou has come to terms with the fact that there wasn’t anything she could have done to stop her friend’s death. She has also started working with Body & Soul, a charity that uses a community-based and trauma-informed approach to help people recover from adversity.
Lou is now training up in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, a practice that can help regulate emotions, and as an ambassador for the charity, she wants to ensure that other suicidal people don’t fall through the cracks.
‘There have been nearly 1,000 people who have gone through this program, and of those who have attempted suicide, there has not been one re-attempt,’ she explains.
Need support?
For emotional support, you can call the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org, visit a Samaritans branch in person or go to the Samaritans website.
If you’re a young person, or concerned about a young person, you can also contact PAPYRUS, the Prevention of Young Suicide UK.
Their HOPELINE247 is open every day of the year, 24 hours a day. You can call 0800 068 4141, text 88247 or email: pat@papyrus-uk.org.
‘Suicide is the biggest killer of young people in our society. So we need more people to have access to this charity, and we need more funding, because it is very successful, and it is a program that really works.
‘When I think about Caroline, and where she would be now, I think she could be in a place where she was really happy. It’s all so unnecessary. And while I do understand why she did what she did, it’s so incredibly sad for the people left behind.
‘Everyone loved Caroline,’ adds Lou. ‘I still get messages today from people saying they feel like they knew her. It’s just such a shame. Her legacy is her #BeKind post. I feel like she really said something with that, and it opened people’s eyes to understand that there is a human being at the end of everyone’s opinions.
‘As a society, I think we all need to be a bit more responsible for our actions.’
Lou Teasdale is a global ambassador of suicide prevention charity Body & Soul, whose new campaign ‘Let’s Kill Suicide’ is an urgent call to change the narrative on suicide prevention and tackle the youth suicide crisis.
