Russell Brand is "angry and sad" about Caroline Flack’s death.
The 44-year-old star – who has spoken candidly about his battle with addictions and mental health issues in the past – has remembered the late presenter as a "dynamo" and hit out at the "trolling judgement" the ‘Love Island’ presenter faced following her arrest for allegedly assaulting her boyfriend, Lewis Burton, last December.
In a message posted to his website following Caroline’s suicide on Saturday (15.02.20), he wrote: "The line then that separates people who kill themselves and people that don’t is vague and uncertain, it is a line within each of us, not between us.
"We just don’t know who will or who won’t be pushed to a point of such inward pain and desperation that the dreadful certainty of suicide and the despair it inflicts on those left behind are insufficient deterrents.
"I am angry and sad that Caroline Flack found herself in that place. I am sad because she was a lovely little person, a real laugh, a dynamo and the idea that she had been so drained of hope by her circumstances chokes me.
"I am angry because I have watched this play out before with vulnerable people in the public eye and I would like to slay with some righteous sword the salacious, foaming, incessant poking, trolling judgment that chased her to the grave. The way it did with Jade Goodie , the way it did with Amy Winehouse.(sic)"
The ‘Get Him to the Greek’ star admitted he "resigned" from life in the public eye because he didn’t like the person it turned him into.
He continued: "I have resigned from fame because it brought out the worst in me, vanity, insecurity, jealousy, competitiveness.
"Most people I’ve spoken to have comparable experiences, it’s hard to endure what celebrity does to your mental health without a robust constitution or strong counter measures to ground and protect you."
Russell urged people to use their social media accounts to spread positive messages.
He wrote: "Social media is a network of connections. We can use those connections to convey love and support and kindness, all ideas that can be rationally understood as expressions of our unity.
"While we are unique and different, beautiful in our vast and distinct identities – and all identities can be honoured, we are all capable of kindness, we are all capable of redemption, we are all worthy of love.
"Whenever we speak and act and relate we emanate intent through the invisible threads that connect us. Communication is the creation of community, what kind of communities are we creating?
"Caroline was surrounded by friends and families that loved her, that love her still through a shattered lens of anguish, and that love could not incubate her or protect her from the pain and shame that ended her life.
"We have the power to hurt one another and the power to heal one another, perhaps that’s the only power we have. We can never see the positive impact of our actions, the times when our kindness and compassion may have saved a life but we can see what happens in its absence.
"As long as our public values continue to be an expression of lower human instincts none of us are exempt from the pain and shame that closed in on the bright and playful light that used to shine from Caroline.
"Our best hope is to build relationships and communities based on kindness, forgiveness and compassion, not easy values to maintain given the complexity within us and without us but Caroline’s death shows us that the alternative is just too sad to bear."
Russell Brand ‘angry and sad’ over Caroline Flack’s death
