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EXCLUSIVE
Loose Women’s Coleen Nolan is going it alone on tour – but behind closed doors there’s talk of marriage number three...
Things have not always been easy for singer Coleen Nolan. Her marriages - to EastEndersstar Shane Richie (the dad of her sons, Shane Jr, 34, and Jake, 31) and musician Ray Fensome (dad to Ciara, 21) – ended in divorce. Her family has been rocked by cancer – her oldest sister Anne has survived breast cancer twice, but her sister Bernie died from the disease in 2013.
Meanwhile, her gorgeous sister Linda is currently battling the disease, which has now spread to her brain, moving Coleen to say, she was ‘sick’ of the onslaught.
She even admitted to her own brush with the disease, a skin cancer was removed from a shoulder and a pre-melanoma (the most deadly form of skin cancer) from her face. Yet despite it all, she retains a sense of dry humour and a ‘life is for living’ attitude. Which is why, at the age of 58, she’s embarking on her first ever solo tour. ‘I said to myself, “don’t wallow, that’s life”,’ she said. Here, in an exclusive no-holdsbarred chat, the presenter – who lives in Cheshire with her partner Michael Jones, who works in supermarket logistics – talks divorce, counselling and why she may even walk down the aisle for a third time…
Hi Coleen. We hear you’re moving house this month…
I bought my current house during lockdown, it was great – there were seven of us – but now the kids have all left and their partners. I’m downsizing the house but I’ve bought more land for the animals. They’re replacing the kids – ‘Off you go kids, I’ve got horses to buy!’
Will your partner Michael be moving in with you?
Michael has kind of moved in already, but he’ll definitely be moving in when I move house.
Your relationship has been fairly on-off hasn’t it?
It was on-off, on-off, down to me. The papers keep saying Michael couldn’t handle it but it was never anything to do with him. I just kept having massive panic attacks. I was scared of having anyone get involved in my life again. Me and Ray are great friends now but my second divorce, especially, was hard for a good couple of years.
What changed your mind?
I had counselling. I said: ‘I’ve got this person I was desperately hoping that both my ex-husbands would be.’ They were brilliant in other ways but not the lovely, romantic, caring way. That’s what I’d always wanted and I finally got it and I didn’t know what to do with it. Michael was very loving, very romantic. I’d say I was going to Tesco and he’d say he’d come with me. I’d say, ‘What do you mean?’ And he’d reply, ‘Well, because we’re partners, I do things with you.’ It freaked me out, because I’d never had it. I broke
