Steve Coogan has said that his “heart goes out” to Caroline Flack’s family after she took her own life.
The former Love Island host makes a posthumous appearance in the actor’s forthcoming satirical film Greed, presenting Coogan’s character Sir Richard McCreadie with a cheque.
In the trailer for the Michael Winterbottom-directed feature, she says: “Now it’s time for the man you’ve all been waiting for… the king of the high street.”
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Coogan described Flack’s death as “tragic” and said it had raised “lots of issues” around social media and the press.
Flack was found dead at her east London home on Saturday, having taken her own life aged 40.
Coogan said: “It was awful. Obviously my heart goes out to her loved ones and her family. It’s tragic. There are lots of issues that are raised by it.
“I am sure you have talked about that – to do with social media, to do with the press, to do with the discourse that takes place specifically on social media, and also to do with the way the press behave.
“But I don’t particularly want to use what is a tragic death and a tragic occurrence to make political capital out of it.
— Love Island (@LoveIsland) February 15, 2020
“I certainly think that, really, the problem with social media is that people don’t see the whites of the eyes of the person they are talking to, so they behave in quite a reprehensible way.
“You can wax lyrical about it all but I just think people need to step back and question how they behave, question how they talk to each other.
“We can disagree with each other but we don’t have to be disagreeable.”
The Alan Partridge star plays a retail tycoon inspired by Topshop magnate Sir Philip Green.
He said he avoided social media because he worried he would be “sucked into a vortex of argument with someone whose opinion I might not particularly respect”.
He added that he instead tried to express himself through his films and TV shows.
Coogan also encouraged people to consider that their views might not be “watertight” and described holding views with “absolute certainty” as “dangerous”.
Flack stepped down from presenting the current winter series after the alleged assault on her boyfriend Lewis Burton.
She pleaded not guilty at a court hearing in December and was released on bail.
But she was ordered to stop having any contact with Mr Burton ahead of a trial, which had been due to begin in March.
Greed is in UK cinemas now.