Nadia Sawalha fights back tears as she addresses ‘suffering’ of Loose Women staffers after ITV axe

29 May 2025, 14:59

Nadia Sawalha struggled to retain her composure as she revealed her upset over ITV axing Loose Women for half the year.

Last week, the broadcaster announced the panel show and Lorraine were being scaled back in a major shake-up of the daytime schedule to cut costs.

Ms Sawalha’s voice faltered as she apologised to behind-the-scenes Loose Women staffers whose lives had been upturned by the shock decision on her YouTube channel.

Alongside her husband Mark Adderley, Ms Sawalha, 60, said on their Coffee Moaning show: “Do you know what, at the moment, all of us on screen are in work and are proud of what we do.

“But behind the scenes there are people that are really suffering, and what you don't realise is when you attack the show you attack them, because you never see all the army of people behind the scenes and how hard they work.”

Struggling to fight back the tears, Ms Sawalha continued: “So to all my friends and colleagues behind the scenes who have just got a huge shock out of the blue, I'm so sorry.

“Mark knows how upset I've been at home about it. I just can't bear it. So just be f****** kind to people.”

From January 2026, Loose Women will air 30 weeks of the year but remain in its current hour slot from 12.30pm.

Lorraine will be cut from an hour to 30 minutes and will also broadcast for 30 out of 52 weeks each year.

To fill the gap, Good Morning Britain will be extended by half an hour, airing from 6am to 9.30am every weekday.

However, This Morning, which runs from 10am until 12.30pm on weekdays and is presented by the likes of Alison Hammond, Ben Shepherd and Cat Deeley, remains untouched.

The cuts will lead to the loss of more than 200 jobs, nearly half of the 440 staff working across the programmes.

Kevin Lygo, Managing Director of ITV’s Media and Entertainment Division, said: "Daytime is a really important part of what we do, and these scheduling and production changes will enable us to continue to deliver a schedule providing viewers with the news, debate and discussion they love from the presenters they know and trust as well generating savings which will allow us to reinvest across the programme budget in other genres.

"These changes also allow us to consolidate our news operations and expand our national, international and regional news output and to build upon our proud history of trusted journalism at a time when our viewers need accurate, unbiased news coverage more than ever.”