Olly Murs fights back tears in emotional tribute to close friend Caroline Flack (original) (raw)

An 'emotional' Olly Murs was fighting back the tears as he paid an emotional tribute to his close friend Caroline Flack following his performance at Flackstock 2024 last night.

Olly shared this sweet tribute to Caroline Flack after his performance

Olly Murs has paid an emotional tribute to his former X Factor co-star Caroline Flack after he performed at the third Flackstock festival yesterday.

The 40-year-old dad-of-one was a close friend of former Love Island host Caroline – who sadly took her own life at the age of 40-years-old in February 2020. Each year Flackstock, a festival set up by Caroline’s friends and relatives, champions the TV star’s life with music, comedy and dance while raising cash for mental health charities.

Her close friends thought up with the concept after feeling that the first coronavirus lockdown in 2020, which was in place only 13 days after Caroline's funeral, robbed them and her family of the chance to mourn together.

In its inaugural year in 2022 Flackstock featured performances by the likes of Ronan Keating, Tom Grennan, Olly Murs, Natalie Imbruglia and more. The event was attended by thousands and raised an incredible £325k split equally between Choose Love, Mind, Samaritans and Charlie Waller Trust – four worthy outlets that held a special place in Caroline’s heart.

This year the festival took place at Englefield House, Pangbourne, in Berkshire, and was attended by the likes of; Tom Walker, Olly Murs, Joe Wickes, Rebecca Ferguson, Gok Wan,Kate Lawler, Denise Van Outen and more.

Olly was fighting to hold back the tears in his emotional video (

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Olly murs/Instagram)

Joe Wickes shared a series of sweet pictures from Olly's performance last night (

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thebodycoach/Instagram)

On the afternoon of Monday, July 22, Olly shared a series of videos of him and the late TV star to mark Flackstock 2024. He captioned the post on Instagram, “Been reminiscing a lot these last few weeks knowing Flackstock is today!”, Olly began. “Caz loved singing, we did it so much, didn’t always capture those moments on camera but I did capture them as memories which I’ll never forget. So I thought I’d put some of these clips on here that I found of her beautiful voice! She sang more than me when I was around her.

“Today will be hard, it’s really odd feeling for me, I have this feeling of wanting to do this gig for her, for her family and for us to remember what a crazy funny kind mad hilarious woman she was but also feeling I’d rather this festival not be here, and that Caz was still here with us. I’ve never felt emotions like this before a gig!

“Although hard this festival is a special event, which brings everyone together not just to celebrate her life but help those out there that are struggling too, the amazing charities that are involved in this can really help people. I’m honoured to be here and I know she will be drinking a pina colada tonight watching x miss ya caz.”

Olly Murs, and Caroline Flack at London auditions of The X Factor at SSE Arena on July 16, 2015 (

Image:

Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)

Olly Murs pays emotional tribute to Caroline Flack (

Image:

Instagram)

The comment section of the post, which has had over 100,000 likes, was inundated with messages of support from his fans.One wrte: "She’d be so proud of you and smiling at how your keeping her memory alive," while another said: "What a voice, what a smile, what a laugh! Sending huge love to you all today."

Some celebrities also took to the comment section with broadcaster Ashley James writing: "I miss her so much! " and Pixie Lott leaving three heart emojis under Olly's post.

Late yesterday evening Olly took to his Instagram stories to reflect on the emotional day. Fighting back the tears in the back of a car he said: "Wow, what a night tonight, I just wanted to come on here and say thank you to everyone that came to Flackstock."

He thanked everyone for raising so much money for charity and for the love and support. He continued: "It was an emotional one tonight, the weirdest feeling this gig tonight, I've never had a feeling like it in all the years I've been perfoming. This is Caroline's festival it's in her name it's for her and her family and all the incredible charities."

He added: "I was very emotional going into it but I just think that you guys pulled through for me - the fans were incredible tonight, thank you for the love, the support- you guys singing."

* Samaritans (116 123) operates a 24-hour service available every day of the year. If you prefer to write down how you’re feeling, or if you’re worried about being overheard on the phone, you can email Samaritans at jo@samaritans.org