The former Loose Women presenter opened up about her secret shame.

Loose Women’s Andrea McLean says ‘my life fell apart’ after losing everything (Image: Instagram Andrea McLean)

Andrea McLean said her “life fell apart” as the presenter addressed the struggles she faced in recent years. The on-screen host quit her job on Loose Women in 2020 after 13 years on the ITV show. The television broadcaster said her life imploded after leaving the show to launch her own business. She faced several setbacks including health woes.

Andrea left Loose Women to commit to her empowerment brand but her life was turned upside down after the company folded losing her £1m in the process and she nearly died from pneumonia and sepsis. She has since quit the UK and started a new life abroad in Spain.

The mum-of-two said on her Instagram Stories on Friday that she has shared all in her latest book called Shameless.

In a candid video, Andrea began: “This book that I have spent the past 18 months or so writing and literally pouring out my heart and soul has just become available for pre order on Amazon.

“The book is called Shameless and the reason for that is because as you know my whole life fell apart a few years ago and we lost our business, we lost our livelihood and I lost my health.

And to be honest there was so much shame wrapped up in all that awfulness that was going on in our lives that I just needed to kind of understand it a little bit. Not only to make myself feel better but to just understand why feel so much shame when we make a mistake or things go wrong or things happen to us that aren’t even our fault.”

She added: “I started writing it to really try and make sense of losing everything that meant so much to us. But then I realised there’s so many things I’ve got wrong in life and felt shame about that I thought we all feel this way but nobody talks about it.”

Andrea explained her main purpose for writing the book was so people no longer feel “rubbish” about themselves.

Andrea McLean has written her book Shameless (Image: Instagram Andrea McLean)

She said: “This time around I’ve written about everything. Everything that I’ve got wrong. All the mistakes I have made.

I thought if I’m going to shine a light on one thing and the first thing was the financial fallout, sod it, shine a light on everything and I don’t need to feel ashamed.”

Andrea’s new book, Shameless: Finding Freedom and Resilience Through Failure, will be released in May 2026.