The boyfriend of late YouTube star Emily Hartridge has poignantly revealed that they had begun living together four days before her death, after pulling forward their moving date at the last-minute.
The vlogger and TV presenter was killed earlier this month following crash involving her electric scooter and a lorry near her London home.
Her boyfriend Jake Hazell appeared on Wednesday’s Lorraine alongside Emily’s sister Charlotte, where he heartbreakingly recalled his final days with her.
Speaking to host Christine Lampard: “It was so weird, I was actually meant to move in the day she passed away, but for one reason or another – which I’m very grateful for, we decided to move in the Monday before, so I had four nights living with Emily, which I’ll cherish forever.”
Jake also revealed that he found out Emily had died after coming across the scene of her accident.
He said: “She was on the way to the fertility clinic because she was freezing her egg. Her appointment was at 9am and I didn’t hear anything after 9, 10 o’ clock. That’s odd. I spoke to Emily’s sisters, they hadn’t heard, she wasn’t at work. So, I thought, ‘she’s just hopefully fallen asleep in the flat’, she sleeps with her aeroplane mode on. so I thought, ‘this is all it is’.
“As I was riding my motorbike back to our flat, I found the accident. That’s unfortunately how we found out.”
Charlotte said Emily’s family were hoping to set up a charity in her name to carry on the work she had done around mental health in her YouTube videos.
“We always knew how amazing she was but I don’t think she even realised how many people she was helping. We are so proud of her… there is a bit of an Emily-shaped hole now…
“But it’s tough, Emily’s legacy will live on.”
A statement posted on Emily’s Instagram account on 13 July confirmed her death, and stars including Davina McCall paid tribute in the comments.
The 35-year-old had more than 340,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, which featured a weekly show about proving that “everything in the world can be explained with 10 reasons”.