LONDON (AFP) - England Test star Danny Cipriani revealed on Friday (Feb 21) he once tried to buy a gun to kill himself in an emotional video posted on Instagram just days after the death of his ex-girlfriend Caroline Flack.

British TV presenter Flack, best known for hosting hit reality show Love Island, was found dead at her London flat last Saturday having taken her own life at the age of 40.

Cipriani, who is with Gloucester in the English Premiership and played 16 times for England winning his last cap in 2018, talked about his past mental health struggles in the video posted to his 213,000 followers.

In the 18-minute speech he paid tribute to Flack, whom he dated last year, and with whom he was still in regular contact.

"I told her everything about me because I felt safe with her," said Cipriani.

"I told her all the things I was embarrassed and shameful about. She made me feel OK and ultimately it was embarrassment and shame that killed her."

Cipriani, 32, said when he was 22 he was severely depressed and was seeing a psychiatrist.

"I decided at a point it was time for me to take my own life. I tried to buy a gun," he said.

"And I pulled out of it and I tried to buy it and I pulled out and this went on for two months and I couldn't do it because I had some fight in me."

The fly-half said embarrassment and shame should not lead people to consider ending their lives.

"Everyone has embarrassment and shame to some sort of degree," he said.

"Whatever it is, we (should) be kind, we try and be gentle."

Cipriani, whose career has been blighted by off-the-field issues, was convicted of drink-driving in 2016 and was fined for assault and resisting arrest at a Jersey nightclub in 2018.

Flack stepped down from presenting the current winter series of Love Island after an alleged assault on her boyfriend, Lewis Burton.

She pleaded not guilty at a court hearing in December and was released on bail. A trial had been due to begin in March.