“I WAS FORCED OUT…” Carol McGiffin has opened up about what really happened behind the scenes at Loose Women
Carol McGiffin officially left Loose Women in 2023 (Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Loose Women star Carol McGiffin opened up about her exit from the ITV show, claiming she was “forced out” due to contract changes. The broadcaster, 66, first joined the panel in 2000, remaining there until her first exit in 2013. She rejoined the cast in 2018 but left permanently in 2023. During her last few years on the show, Carol said she was repeatedly censored by the broadcaster and admitted she didn’t like the way the show changed following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Speaking on Andrew Gold’s Heretics podcast in 2025, she explained: “For a long time, since the pandemic, the ‘fake pandemic’ as I call it, it changed a lot. The narrative had to be steered toward the government lines and it never did that before that. ITV was always a little bit woke before people even knew things were woke. But they understood they needed to have a show where people disagreed.”
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Although she described the changes as “exhausting” and “tiring”, Carol said the reason she left is because ITV forced her out.
“They forced me out with contract issues. I live in France, I don’t even live in the UK. So, they were trying to force me onto the ITV payroll. But when they did that, most of the people on that show were self-employed and had limited companies, so it’s for personal service companies,” she claimed.
“They wanted everybody to be on the payroll. But they knew full well that I didn’t really need to be. I didn’t do that many shows, I lived in France and I wasn’t a British taxpayer. But they forced it. They said, ‘Well, you’ve got to be on the payroll otherwise you can’t do it.'”
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Carol praised the Loose Women from back in the day, describing it as “brilliant” and admitting she still watches old clips.
“It was hilarious, it was funny, everybody got on, it was sassy, it was completely different,” she said. “Now, it’s just not like that.”
The broadcaster returned to the show in 2018 before leaving permanently in 2023 (Image: ITV)
However, she noticed the changes once ITV told her she couldn’t say certain things.
She shared: “I got censored so many times. We would be sitting in the meeting talking about the show and I would say something and be told I couldn’t say that.
“Everybody had to agree with each other. And they still do it now. But I am pretty certain there are people on that show who don’t think like that but they do because they want to keep their job.”
Carol said she believes the changes started with the pandemic, which she doesn’t believe was real.
“We didn’t have the fake pandemic back then. And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back really,” she added.
