Loose Women star Coleen Nolan has been a regular on TV screens for decades and has been open about her personal life over the years.
Coleen Nolan provides update on her sister Linda
Coleen Nolan has been in the public eye since her childhood. She first appeared on television at the age of nine on It’s Cliff Richard! alongside her sisters. Coleen became famous as part of The Nolans, but left the pop group in the early 90s to focus on her children.
She joined the Loose Women panel in 2000 and has remained there ever since. However, she has also made numerous other TV appearances.
The 59 year old has presented on This Morning, competed on Dancing on Ice, was a runner-up on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! and won Celebrity Big Brother in 2017. Coleen’s life off-camera is equally interesting. Her relationships have included steamy affairs, heartbreaking deaths and soap star exes, reports the Mirror.
In the late 1980s, she met actor Shane Richie, best known for playing Alfie Moon on the long-running BBC soap EastEnders. They soon had their first son together and got engaged. Although they initially planned a grand wedding, they decided to elope Florida in the early 90s.
Along with their son Shane Jr, they also had a second son together named Jake. However, their love story ended in 1997, with both Coleen and Shane admitting to having affairs during their relationship. In her autobiography, Coleen revealed she kissed a keyboard player while on tour with her sisters.
Feeling unattractive and invisible after the birth of her second son, she relished the attention. She penned: “As I kissed my musician, it was like a sexual awakening. Adrenalin was pumping through my body. I knew what I was doing was terribly wrong, but I was literally shaking with exhilaration. ‘I am still attractive,’ I thought to myself.”
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Since then, Coleen has labelled the incident as “one of the most horrendous times” in her life. Despite both Coleen and Shane’s infidelities, the pair have managed to keep things friendly and continued to co-parent their sons together amicably.
After her divorce, she met musician Ray Fensome, who became her second husband and father to her only daughter, Ciara. In 2005, the couple got engaged before tying the knot two years later in 2007. Unfortunately, their marriage didn’t last and they ended their relationship two years after their wedding.
However, much like Shane, Coleen and Ray seem to have no animosity and remain close friends to this day. The ITV star recently introduced her partner, Michael Jones, on Loose Women.
Meeting him on the dating app Tinder, their relationship has had some ups and downs, with reports suggesting they’ve split three times. However, it appears as though things are back on track.
In a chat with the Mirror a while back, Coleen admitted: “It was all my issues because of what I’d gone through, so I was pushing him away, thinking I couldn’t deal with it. I’m very open to everything he’s providing me emotionally, and it’s fantastic.”
Further evidence that their relationship is going strong came when Coleen shared a lovely photo of herself with Michael and her family at one of her son’s shows in Edinburgh. In total, Coleen has three children and it seems as though with her two eldest have inherited their parents’ showbiz genes.
During the Nolan Sisters’ 2009 tour, Shane Jr served as the warm-up singer for his mum’s band. He also leads The Nolan Band alongside Matt Bamber and Jack Lavelle. Jake, too, is no stranger to the spotlight. He was a member of the band Rixton, now known as Push Baby, which scored a No. 1 hit with their song Me and My Broken Heart.
Although Push Baby announced a hiatus in 2022, Jake has been touring solo, sharing stories from his time in the music industry. Recently, Jake revealed on Instagram that he and his partner are expecting a baby.
Coleen Nolan has revealed her heartache as her daughter, Ciara, made the bold move to travel the world. In a candid confession earlier this year, Coleen disclosed just how much the decision affected her, admitting: “They’ve worked really hard and saved up and I’m so proud of them both and her, but honestly, I just can’t stop crying. But I’m trying not to do it in front of her because I’m thrilled and I’m proud because what an amazing thing to do. But it’s like losing my best friend.”
The sentimentality was palpable yet again recently as the proud mum shared an adorable photo on social media that hinted at Ciara’s return to the UK. Opening up about personal loss and her sister Bernie’s devastating cancer battle, Coleen recalled the harrowing time of Bernie’s diagnosis.
Bernie tragically passed away in 2013 at the age of 52 after her fight with breast cancer, which included a mastectomy and chemotherapy treatment. Despite being given the all-clear in 2012, the cancer returned and spread rapidly.
On Loose Women, Coleen has often spoken emotionally about how differently her family members have coped with their losses. Reflecting on her way of remembering loved ones, she shared: “For me. It’s not, ‘Oh, I like to have this thing that’s going to help me remember them’. Because I never, ever, from the day she died or my parents died, ever forgot. I’ll never forget.”
Tragically, Coleen’s sister Linda is in the throes of a fierce battle with breast cancer, which she was first diagnosed with in 2005. The illness made an unwelcome return in 2017 and has since metastasised to her brain, bones, and liver. In a heartfelt segment on Loose Women, Coleen shared with viewers that Linda prefers to remain in the dark about how much time she has left, choosing instead to savour every moment of life.
Coleen relayed Linda’s fighting spirit, commenting: “At the moment, she’s still having treatment, and that’s what’s keeping her going, you know, ‘as long as they’re still going to treat me, then I’m going to keep on going’.”
In a personal revelation, Coleen disclosed her own brush with a health crisis in 2023 when she was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer. While speaking on the Learning As I Go: Learning To Feel The Fear podcast, she opened up, saying: ‘I got skin cancer last year. I had carcinoma on my shoulder, which has now gone. And I had chemo cream on my shoulder, so that burned that off.”
Following her ordeal, the ITV celebrity has vowed never to step outside without applying SPF 50.
