When Harry was 17, he dated the late TV presenter Caroline Flack, who was 32 then, making for a 15-year age gap — a pretty big stretch when one of the partners isn’t even old enough to legally buy a pint of beer. Although, plus side, you do get a designated driver. “With Caroline Flack, you can imagine, dads and sons, it’s like, ‘Fair play, son.’ But it was a bit ridiculous, 32 or whatever she was and 17. It’s a bit extreme, really,” Harry’s dad Desmond Styles told Daily Record.
Harry and Flack dated for a few months in 2011 when One Direction had just won “The X-Factor” and Flack was presenting its sister show “The Xtra Factor.” After they split, speculation emerged that Harry had moved on to a newer model. Something he immediately shot down. “Please know I didn’t ‘dump’ Caroline. This was a mutual decision. She is one of the kindest, sweetest people I know. Please respect that,” Styles tweeted. Still, Flack faced significant backlash for dating the teen. “You’re a victim,” one commenter replied to Harrty’s tweet. “‘dump Caroline’ ???? Baby, she was grooming you,” they continued.
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Flack blamed the scrutiny and the haters for their relationship ending. ”In the street, people started shouting at me ‘pedophile’ and ‘pervert,'” she wrote in “Storm in a C Cup,” her 2004 memoir. “A ‘One Direction’ fanzine had me as a voodoo doll, with arrows (pins) pointing at various parts of my anatomy.”
