Sam Thompson staged a mock funeral for his best friend Pete Wicks after the former TOWIE star went public with his new girlfriend Olivia Attwood. The former Made In Chelsea star shared a video on Instagram captioned: "When your boy gets a girlfriend."
Dressed head-to-toe in black, Sam carried a makeshift cardboard coffin featuring a huge cutout of Pete, topped with red roses. He propped the "coffin" against a tree, placed the flowers and a cigarette beside it, and delivered an emotional eulogy.
Eulogy for a bromance
Sam's sister Louise Thompson and her partner Ryan Libbey joined in the joke, dressing in black and wearing sunglasses as they watched. Addressing his fellow mourners, Sam said: "Thank you for coming and helping me celebrate the life of Peter James Jonathan Joseph Wicks."
He joked: "I was shocked when I heard the news. You don't see it coming, someone like Peter. You know, he's always that guy who's first into Stringfellows, last out. He's got slippers there."
Warning signs and a hard launch
Sam claimed there had been warning signs that Pete was changing. He said: "I should have seen it coming. He started laughing at my jokes. He stopped abusing me. He hasn't called me a c**t in months, and I still remember the last thing he said to me. 'No b***h can hold me down'. Well Pete, she's held you down."
He then showed Pete's Instagram hard launch, a loved-up photo of Pete with his hand around Olivia's neck. "He used to choke me like that," Sam joked. "Now he's choking her. I've lost him, I've lost him! He's posting on Instagram. He doesn't like Instagram."
As Sam became increasingly distraught, Ryan stepped in to drag him away from the memorial as he cried out: "Peter, Peter!"
Fans react
Fans loved the video, with JLS star Aston Merrygold commenting: "This is outrageously brilliant." Another follower referenced the film My Girl, writing: "It's giving 'his glasses, he can't see without his glasses'". A third applauded: "The dedication to the art attack home made coffin."
The video comes after Pete, 37, and Olivia, 35, went public with their romance following months of speculation. Pete confirmed they were an item last month by sharing pictures from a trip to Ibiza. Olivia later shared her own post with intimate snaps of the pair kissing and cuddling, captioned: "Because I missed him..."
Olivia and Pete's romance follows the breakdown of her marriage to footballer Bradley Dack earlier this year. Olivia announced their separation in January after more than two years of marriage and moved out of their Cheshire home. She later said a breach of trust had led to the split, describing what happened as "deeply painful" and "humiliating".
