Rugby player says he will release voice message presenter sent to him days before she killed herself

Danny Cipriani has posted an emotional video on social media about his ex-girlfriend Caroline Flack, saying she tried to call him before she died and that he would release a voice message from her.

Flack, who presented the ITV reality show Love Island, was found dead at her east London home on Saturday 15 February, having taken her own life.

Cipriani, a Gloucester rugby union player, dated Flack until May 2019, but he said they were in regular contact and that he heard from her the day before she died.

Flack stepped down from the current winter series of ITV’s Love Island after an alleged assault on her boyfriend Lewis Burton, a tennis player. She pleaded not guilty at a court hearing in December and was released on bail.

But in his emotional 18-minute video message, Cipriani said Flack told him she was going to change her plea. “She text me on Friday and said she had to plead guilty, and I had a game. Which again, is another story, another distraction – everything is a distraction until we actually understand that love and healing and coming together is what we need to do,” he said.

He also said Flack had tried to call him, saying he was touched that she had decided to reach out to him. He said: “I felt safe with her”.

He added: “I have written her messages she is not going to read because her phone is not on. Well, it is but she is not here. But I have had to voice things to her. And I am going to play the message at some point, the voice note she left about 15 days ago because people need to hear it.

“But right now this is me. You can make jokes. I don’t care because it is not going to affect me. She has given me that. Because she has given me that, I am sharing it with you.”

Cipriani said that, despite her situation, Flack spent the last part of her message to him asking about his life and sport.

“I can see clearly now and I hate the fact it has taken someone so kind and so beautiful and had just as many faults as me and you … But never malicious. She was kind; she was loving.”

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The 32-year-old also described his own struggles with mental health and depression in his early 20s. He said of their relationship: “I told her all the things I was embarrassed and shameful about. And she made me feel OK, and ultimately it was embarrassment and shame that killed her.”

“So I’m telling everyone now what my most embarrassing and shameful moments are because I know she knew I had the strength to do this – and we had spoken about how things had to change.”

The sportsman also addressed how he had struggled with his mixed heritage and skin colour. He said he had “always been made to feel like you’re not white enough or you’re not black enough” and that he had “always been different”.

The video also saw him open up about his father leaving when he was a boy. Cipriani said he had subsequently caused himself “pain” through “meaningless sex or painkillers or drinking alcohol”.

Explaining his reasons for posting the video, he added: “I’m saying these things out loud so people understand it’s OK to be vulnerable and you can take it any way that you choose, and that is also OK.

“But be kind – not to me, I don’t need that.”