Fly well golden bird

I can’t believe she’s gone.

It was Kathy Burke’s interview with Caroline Flack that sparked my attention and prompted my fascination with her. Over the summer. I was late to the party, but I’d had a brief and joyous fling with a 23-year old Greek footballer in Santorini and suddenly I very much identified with Flack. The conversation resonated so much that I started following her career and life on Instagram. It was more than that actually. I adopted her as a new icon. A Samantha Jones for the 21st Century. A passionate, sexy, bright, focused career girl who wasn’t going to be defined by society’s values. A woman who ricocheted from one heartbreak to the next, I empathised with her on her courageous journey for love. She suffered with these break-ups, each one in the public eye – another failure (again so relatable to me), yet she knew how to dust herself off and get back on the pony. She used the same strategies as I would to get over heartbreak – wonderful friends, fabulous wardrobe, partied hard, went on holiday. The heartbreak she couldn’t deal with was the idea of her career being over.

I wanted to type out some of what she said in the interview because it encouraged me to hear such a cool, successful woman’s thoughts on love.

“I see in the media, if you’re in your 30s, or your 40s or 50s and you’ve not settled down yet and you’re not wearing a twin set and pearls, they think that you’re unhappy in some way. I never had that fairytale, [of wanting] to meet my prince and settle down, so I ‘spose when it’s come to relationships I still always put work first… I’ve never got to that point where I’ve thought maybe I should slow down, think about having kids and maybe think about settling down. That’s never been wired into me. …

…I love the idea of love. I love falling in love. It’s quite addictive that first romantic feeling and then maybe I’ve just never been very good at keeping it going.”

“When you’re on your own you’re more powerful…. when you’re single and happy, that is when you feel your best.”

She was brilliant in this interview; honest, relatable, laughing and wrinkling her nose at the thought of ending one relationship and starting another. She just kept pressing on with seemingly boundless energy and resourcefulness. It was the same as her approach to her career.

At first I couldn’t understand her appeal. I never found her likeable in the few episodes of Love Island I’d watched. I thought she was stern and untouchable. She seemed joyless and, as it was the only thing I’d seen her in, I didn’t understand the worship she inspired in the islanders. Of course I totally missed the point that she was supposed to be this authoritarian figure instructing the inmates with their orders. Had I watched her flirting with James Arthur on X Factor, I’d have definitely warmed to her sooner. She was charming with a huge sense of fun.

But then suddenly my new sexy-cool late-30s career girl, Benjamin Button icon was in trouble and I watched, traumatised, as the story of her battering her boyfriend unfolded. Here was the downfall we could all have anticipated. If you’re female, gorgeous, unmarried and the wrong side of 35, you are heading for trouble. Because the media can’t handle such a volatile entity. What does it mean if a woman choses career before family? It disrupts the patriarchy. It disrupts those boorish older men who prey on younger women who have tuned into the narrative that their precious fertility is slipping away so rapidly that they need to compromise massively on their partner to start that damn family.

But Caroline blew it all out of the water. She acted and looked like she was 25. Singing and dancing. Beguiling the entire country. Tempting as golden brown. Strident, independent, vulnerable, driven, energetic. Honest – allowing us into her life as she fell into the arms of another young man.

I can’t get over how beautiful she was. Unbelievably sexy. Gilded, glossy, impossibly young looking. A goddess. She conquered hearts.

Yes, I am troubled by the violence and especially by what Andrew Brady claimed about receiving a similar treatment by her hands, but at the time of writing he appears to have regretted speaking up. “Lewis. I’m sorry they broke her and I’m sorry that I have contributed some what. I loved Caroline as much as you and I saw the real her. I hope you can forgive me. I can’t forgive myself.”

Can’t believe she’s gone. Fly well golden bird. x