Caroline Flack's Boyfriend Moved on Pretty Quickly Following Her Death

In September 2019, Love Island presenter Caroline Flack chatted with Channel 4 about what it was like being single at 39. Voiceover notes that the British media painted Flack as a sad, lonely woman despite the fact that she was incredibly successful in the reality television genre. "I never had that fairytale that I want to meet my prince and settle down," she said in the segment.

While we don't know when that was filmed, we do know Flack had gone Instagram official with her 27-year-old boyfriend a month before its release, per Metro. The 40-year-old was dating former professional tennis player Lewis Burton. Three months later, Burton was calling the police on Flack, alleging that she hit him. After she was arrested, Burton maintained she wasn't a domestic abuser. Flack took her own life in February 2020. What happened between them?

According to The London Evening Standard, in the early morning hours of Dec. 12, 2019, Burton called 999 and told the dispatcher Flack was trying to kill him. Burton told police that he woke up after Flack hit him in the head with her cell phone. The story evolved into Flack hitting Burton with either a lamp or a desk fan. According to Burton, he never said this and maintained that didn't happen.

The bed the couple shared was covered in Flack's blood due to self-inflicted injuries. Burton was treated for a minor head wound. At some point, the former tennis player photographed the bloody bed and sent the picture to an ex-girlfriend. When that was leaked to the press, journalists incorrectly said the blood on the bed was Burton's. He continued to insist that wasn't true.

Following Flack's initial release with a warning, a senior Met officer appealed the decision and charged the television presenter with assault and battery. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) moved forward with the case even though Burton did not want to press charges. Flack stepped down from her job as host of Love Island. Between December 2019 and February 2020, she attempted suicide twice before finally dying by suicide on Feb. 15, 2020.

A few months after Flack took her own life, Burton started dating social media influencer Lottie Tomlinson, the younger sister of One Direction member Louis Tomlinson. On Dec. 31, 2020, Burton posted a picture to Instagram of the couple celebrating New Year's Eve. Comments were turned off.

Nearly two years to the day Flack died, Tomlinson announced in an Instagram post that she was pregnant with her first child. Burton is the father. "Just the three of us," she wrote under a photo of her belly. In a second photo, Burton has his hand on Tomlinson's stomach. The couple welcomed their second child in January 2025. They have a son and a daughter.

Between the births of their son and daughter, Burton proposed to Tomlinson while they were vacationing in Paris in November 2023. "I can't wait to marry you," Burton wrote in the caption of a post to Instagram. "I’ll never forget the day I met you, you turned my world around. You’re the most amazing person I have ever met and the best mum to our lovely boy, Lucky." A date for the wedding has yet to be announced.