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Danny Cipriani: Gloucester fly-half abused on social media after Caroline Flack tribute

Written by on 19/02/2020

Gloucester Rugby are planning on using their next home match against Sale Sharks to help promote mental health awareness, after Danny Cipriani was abused on Twitter following the death of his friend and TV presenter Caroline Flack.

The 40-year-old former Love Island presenter was found dead at her London home on Saturday after taking her own life.

After news broke about Flack’s passing, Cipriani tweeted: “The media are f*****. Never held accountable. They lie. Get away with it every time. People are so quick to read it and just throw nasty comments. She was a kind soul and didn’t deserve the way she was bullied.”

After being accused by another user of using her death to criticise the media, Cipriani responded by saying: “You couldn’t be more misguided. I don’t know who you are. I sincerely hope u get the love you never received.

He added: “This has nothing to do with a game. I missed her call because of a f*****g game. I’ve been up all night. Never cried this much. But I’m showing u it’s ok to be vulnerable.”

    Gloucester’s chief executive said that the Premiership club are planning on using the tragedy to help raise awareness of mental health at their upcoming home match versus Sale Sharks.

    Lance Bradley told BBC Radio Gloucestershire: “As things developed over the weekend I thought we should try and turn this into something positive.

    “I spoke to Danny about ‘what do you think if we made our next home game in aid of a mental health charity with you at the forefront of it so we can turn it into something positive that everybody can unite behind?’

    “Danny was very positive about that and that’s what we’re going to do. Danny was very keen to emphasise: be kind to people.

    “Our staff are in the limelight so much and some people think it’s okay to make them a target. And honestly, it’s not. They’re people too.

    “If you think a player didn’t play well or we should’ve won a game that we lost, all of those things are perfectly valid for fans.

    “Personal criticism I really don’t think has a place and people need to think, all of us need to think carefully about what we Tweet and I think the rule should be if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it.”

    (c) Sky Sports 2020: Danny Cipriani: Gloucester fly-half abused on social media after Caroline Flack tribute