Love Island: Tributes paid to Caroline Flack as winners are crowned

Love Island paid tribute to Caroline Flack as its first winter series drew to a close on Sunday night.

The former host of the show was found dead in her London flat last weekend.

"The past week has been extremely difficult, coming to terms with the loss of our friend and colleague, Caroline," presenter Laura Whitmore told viewers of the ITV2 programme.

"Caroline loved Love Island. She loved love, and that's why tonight's final is dedicated to her."

She added: "We're thinking of her family and everyone who knew her at this time."

The programme then showed a montage of some of Flack's memorable moments from the series in recent years.

The islanders were told about Flack's death off-camera on Saturday, an ITV spokesman confirmed.

Finley Tapp and Paige Turley were crowned the winners of the series as the finale drew to a close.

Two episodes of this series were pulled from the schedules last weekend after Flack was found dead.

The show returned the following Monday with a tribute to Flack from the show's narrator Iain Stirling.

This has been the first series of the show to take place in winter and be filmed in South Africa.

Previous seasons have been filmed on the Spanish island of Mallorca over the summer.

Overall, the winter series has been a ratings hit for ITV2, albeit not as successful as previous summer series.

This series has been attracting around four million viewers per episode, including via catch-up services, compared with the six million the last summer series generally attracted.

Laura Whitmore is the show's current presenter. She joined the show after Flack was charged with assaulting her boyfriend.

Tapp and Turley were crowned the winners of this series on Sunday night, winning the £50,000 prize, which they chose to share between them.

In a twist that occurs in every series, Turley was given the chance to "steal" the full prize money before she decided to split it evenly.

"It's been such an amazing experience," Turley said earlier in the episode. "It's been filled with challenges, but it's been amazing."

Asked what first attracted him to Turley, Tapp said: "I loved how outgoing she was. I wasn't wrong in picking her because I thought she'd make me laugh and smile all day long. She's made me very happy."

Earlier this series, they became the first pair to become an official couple in the villa.

Turley attracted headlines when the series launched in January because she is the ex-girlfriend of singer Lewis Capaldi.

The Scottish star referred to her while accepting the Brit Award for best single earlier this month, for his song Someone You Loved.

"A lot of people think this song is about my ex-girlfriend, who you can now see every night on Love Island," he said.

"But it's actually about my grandmother, who sadly passed away a few years ago. I hope ITV don't contact her to be a on a reality dating show."

During the finale, Whitmore confirmed the show would return to Mallorca for a new series this summer.

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