Lucy Spraggan has dedicated a song on her new album Balance to her late friend Caroline Flack.
The former X Factor contestant, 31, discussed on Sky News why Love Island presenter Caroline, who died by suicide in 2020, inspired one of her songs, after her seventh studio album was released on Friday.
Lucy was just 20 when she was scouted to take part in the ITV series in 2012 and became an overnight sensation, with her audition watched by millions on TV and online.
But the singer-songwriter left the show abruptly after week three when she was raped by porter Soby Jon – who later pleaded guilty to the attack and was jailed.
She said: ‘I remember hearing that she had died and just being so overwhelmed.
Inspired: Lucy Spraggan has revealed she’s dedicated a song on her new album Balance to her late friend Caroline Flack
Dedicated: The former X Factor contestant shared why the late Love Island presenter inspired one of her songs, after she died by suicide in 2020 (Caroline is pictured in 2019)
‘I wondered what protocols and what procedures were in place to help somebody who quite clearly needed help at that time.
Lucy also aims to spread a positive message to her fans through her music in a bid to help other people.
She added: ‘I want people to see my story and say terrible things can happen, but we can get better, and we will feel better. And that’s what this whole thing is about. It’s a very positive message’.
Lucy has also been speaking out after detailing her experience on the show in her new memoir, Process: Finding My Way Through.
In the book, she describes how she was sexually assaulted after fellow contestant Rylan Clark’s 25th birthday party, where staff and singers were given ‘free alcohol’ – ultimately leading to Lucy falling unconscious.
After being helped back to the hotel she was staying at, after being moved from another London hotel with 24 hour security, Lucy was raped by a porter.
In an interview on Elizabeth Day’s podcast How To Fail, Lucy says the aftercare she received from the show’s production company Freemantle and ITV ‘deflated any ounce of self worth that I had left.’
Lucy describes the response from The X Factor’s production team in the days following the assault.
Fame: Lucy was scouted for the show at 20 and made it through the first three live shows before quitting abruptly
Assault: Lucy has since revealed that she was raped after fellow contestant Rylan Clark’s 25th birthday party during the show (pictured with Rylan in 2012)
‘I was a corporate problem,’ she says. ‘We as contestants were corporate commodities from the beginning. In my opinion we were not treated well, we were so tired, we were drunk, we were stupid. We were controlled. We didn’t see our families.’
Breaking down in tears, she added ‘what makes me sad about that was how let down I was. I just feel sorry for myself. I wish I could have marched in and said “don’t worry we’re going to take you somewhere, you don’t have to worry about anything.”
‘There was, and still is I imagine, a huge failure in duty of care towards me, not just my physical self but my mental self.’
‘After the live final of X Factor 2012 I was not contacted again by ITV, by Freemantle or by Syco. I wasn’t offered ongoing mental health support, I wasn’t offered work. I wasn’t offered a secondary platform to kick start my little row boat off of and restart my life and my career. More important my life, because that destroyed it.’
‘If the question is “who failed?” it’s clear to me the people who looked after me at that time failed me.’
She explained how she feels like ‘I have been in prison for a decade. Everytime somebody said “are you that girl off the X Factor?” My name, my face became synomous with The X Factor and those words to me were synomous with my sexual assault.’
‘I was plucked from the biggest moment of my life in the most traumatic fashion. I didn’t grieve for the opportunities that I lost.’
Lucy later recalled how shortly after X Factor presenter Caroline Flack took her own life in 2020, she wrote a letter to ITV, Fremantle, Simon Cowell and Sony telling them she was writing a memoir.
Friends: Lucy has said X Factor boss Simon Cowell ‘was the only one who treated her like a human being’ after he apologised to her years after the assault
‘I said “if you find me full of drugs, full of alcohol in a car, in a ditch and I’m dead that was not me”.
The reply she got from ITV opened with the words ‘we’re sorry that the experience that you had on X Factor was such an unhappy one.’
‘I felt like any ounce of worth that I had built they took a pin and stuck it in my side and deflated any ounce of self worth that I had left,’ she recalls of reading the reply.
However a glimmer of light came from what she thought at the time was an unlikely source – Simon Cowell who called her after receiving her letter.
‘I picked up the call ready to fight and he said “I’m sorry”. In that moment so much of my life changed, Lucy says.
‘The power of accountability from somebody…It stopped raining for the first time in a decade. I didn’t expect that from him.’
‘I joined the big army of contestants who said “we hate Simon Cowell”. He was the only one who treated me like a human being. He’s like family to me now, it’s so confusing to me because I see the human in him.’
‘When Simon asked me what I needed, I told him nothing, you just did it.’
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse is available from Rape Crisis on 0808 500 2222.
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