Love Island host Caroline Flack says she’s yet to meet The One but it’s fun trying ‘different flavours of crisps’
SHE is the host of the most talked-about dating show on television, with her own love life pored over with similar scrutiny.
And as ten more singletons prepare to enter the Love Island villa for the latest series, presenter Caroline Flack may feel more of an affinity with them than ever before.
She will launch the show on Monday as a newly single woman after The Sun revealed she had ended her fleeting relationship with rugby ace Danny Cipriani.
When I ask what she is looking for in a bloke, she says: “Just someone to have a laugh with, someone that doesn’t mind that I’m a really bad cook — so someone who can cook.
“It changes all the time, it’s a chemistry thing. I don’t have a complete type at all, no. You’ve got to try different flavours of crisps.”
Caroline, whose former squeezes include Prince Harry, music manager Jack Street and Strictly dancer AJ Pritchard, says rather than having a type, it is all about the connection she feels with a person.
Talking for the first time about England fly-half Danny, 31, who The Sun revealed she was seeing, she says: “He’s a really nice guy, but I’m not seeing him. I’m going on dates but I’m not telling you who with.”
This time last year Caroline was going through another “uncoupling” which would not have looked out of place on the ITV2 show, as her whirlwind romance and engagement to Apprentice reject Andrew Brady hit the rocks.
A year on there is a noticeable difference in the presenter, who is a bundle of energy as we chat just days before the fifth series of the juggernaut show begins.
Talking from a sun lounger in Majorca, where the show is filmed, Caroline, 39, says: “You have ups and downs. I’m not saying I wasn’t happy last year, it was just a different part of my life.
“I feel really content at the minute. I don’t know if that’s because I’m on my own and I’m sort of just relying on myself, which is always a nice place to be because you can always rely on yourself, can’t you?
“I work really well like that.”
Caroline split from 26-year-old Andrew mid-series last year. We revealed she and Danny had got together earlier this year.
And she lets out a trademark cackle as I ask her what her Tinder dating profile would say now she’s back on the market.
She says: “I laugh a lot. I’m usually the first one on the dance floor and the last one off.
“Probably the first one at the party, last one to go to bed, too.
“I just think that means I’m fun, right? My favourite sentence is, ‘All back to mine’.”
Love Island’s return on Monday follows its most successful series ever last summer, with 3.6million fans seeing Dani Dyer and Jack Fincham triumph.
But this year’s show has been overshadowed by the suicides of former contestant Mike Thalassitis, 26, in March and fellow ex-Islander Sophie Gradon, 32, last year.
Their deaths have raised serious questions about the programme’s aftercare, with some even saying it should be axed.
Changes to Love Island’s processes include new financial and social media training for the Islanders, as well as a more specific aftercare plan, which will see them have to attend a minimum of eight therapy sessions after the show has ended. Caroline applauds the changes and believes they were needed.
She says: “If the show gets bigger, the aftercare does too. The contestants are going to come under more scrutiny now than they would have in series one. We have a duty of care in general for each other.”
And she insists that social media giants such as Twitter and Instagram should take a look at themselves too.
She adds: “You should stop, think and breathe before you speak or write anything negative down. Think about what you’re about to say, because you’re saying something about another person, who’s going to take things personally.
“There’s no aftercare for social media, and that’s where there needs to be some.
“Twitter and Instagram do have to take some responsibility if they’re putting this platform where people can just write anything they want.”
Another criticism the show has already faced this year is that the line-up is not representative of the real world after talk of having plus-size contestants.
Campaigners such as actress Jameela Jamil have criticised the producers’ selection, accusing them of being “drunk” with their choices. But Caroline says: “She’s always criticised the show. I wonder if she’s actually watched it, because it isn’t about what you see on face value.
“I’m a massive fan of Jameela and what she stands for. I’m not in any way putting her down, I really like her.
“Of course, people will look at things on face value and judge them, but the show is so much more than that, it really is.
“And you can only cast a show on who’s right for it, in a relationship sense. It’s a dating show. You can only choose out of the people that apply.
“They’ve just got to be right in that moment, they don’t cast it because of what they look like, it’s who’s in the right moment.”
Beyond her TV commitments, Caroline has been working on her 22-piece River Island summer collection, which is out now and selling fast. Then once the summer of love is over, she has a big milestone approaching — her 40th.
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I ask if she has any goals before the big day in November, and she says: “I’m not going to plan anything. It’s not like, ‘Oh my God, I’m 40, I’ll stop being able to do things’, I can do them when I’m 40.
“I’m looking forward to my 80th, to be fair, Andy — bring on 80!
“And I’m not quitting this job. I’ll be walking, doing my slow-mo walk with a Zimmer frame.”
- Love Island is on Monday at 9pm on ITV2
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