‘I'm actually glad my breakdown happened'

Loose Women star Andrea McLean on surviving her mental health crisis, craving a cocktail and ignoring trolls

- GEMMA McCARTNEY

The Loose Women ladies are used to opening up about personal topics on TV, but Andrea McLean recently dug especially deep when she chose to share with viewers that she’d suffered a mental breakdown last year.

The news came as a shock to many as the presenter, who just turned 50, always seems so chirpy. But as she explains in our chat, it was the culmination of a build-up of baggage over a period of 15 years.

Now in a much better place, Andrea is refreshingly open and chatty when we speak to her about her mental health struggles and how she’s been coping with life during lockdown.

“When lockdown first happened everyone went into shock panic, like, ‘Oh my God, this is like a scary movie. It’s like an apocalypse,’” she tells us. “On the whole it’s been a mixture of all the emotions. Today when I was getting ready I put on The Greatest Showman as loud as it can go and I was dancing around and getting ready and was like, ‘Come on, get yourself out of this.’”

The mum-of-two is married to Nick Feeney and has children Finlay, 18, and Amy, 13, from previous relationships. And she seems to have them very well trained as Andrea tells us she’s getting her son to help with the cooking and cleaning in their Surrey home.

“I’ve said to him, ‘Right, you’re off to college in September, so you’ve got to look after yourself.’ I don’t do any of his washing or ironing or anything,” she says.

Here, Andrea chats to us about getting over her demons, constantly working on herself, and why she’s put on half a stone…

Hi Andrea! Is it nice to be back filming Loose Women?