The Loose Women were replaced on Tuesday with an all-male cast, who candidly shared their own experiences with a number of topics, including dealing with grief and male body image.
The Loose Men return to ITV to celebrate International Men’s Day on Tuesday (November 19).
The special spin-off was headed up by guest host Craig Doyle who was joined by ex-EastEnders star Brian Conley, Jeff Brazier and Jordan Banjo.
During their conversation about grief, Jeff opened up about the death of former partner Jade Goody, who is also the mother of his two sons Bobby and Freddy.
The TV star admitted to his fellow panellists that he “didn’t feel worthy” of grieving for Jade as they had been separated for two years at the time of her tragic death.
Jeff Brazier opened up about Jade Goody during a special episode of Loose Men (
Image:
ITV)
Former Big Brother star Jade Goody of cervical cancer in March 2009, having been first diagnosed in the previous August. The mum-of-two was aged 27.
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Jeff explained how his two sons dealt with their mums death in the months after her passing, and how he had pushed his own grief aside to ensure he looked after Bobby and Freddy.
He explained: “When the boys lost their mum I guess, for the first six or seven months after the loss of their mum they actually didn’t really give it too much of the kind of behaviour I was expecting. Then all of a sudden their world completely turned upside down and it was chaos.”
Jeff continued: “We have all got a coping strategy, and it’s more inherent within men than women, women are really good at being human and natural and being like ‘something really bad has happened I’m going to need to talk about, to connect to people that are close to me because I know that’s what I am going to need’.
Jade Goody and Jeff Brazier pictured together in 2002 (
Image:
Getty Images)
“Where boys, lads, dads we will try and sweep it under, will try and avoid it for as long as possible and hope that we get away with it, we step over it or we try leave it behind.”
Speaking about his own grief after losing Jade, doting dad Jeff explained he had avoided the grieving process which later caught up with him.
He added: “The truth is, that even I, someone who didn’t feel worthy of grieving for Jade because I hadn’t been with her for about two years at this point. I avoided what I was likely to be going through, was a really challenging time.
“But I made it all about the kids, and that’s probably really typical response for any parent. Of course we put them first.”
The Loose Men discussed a range of topics during Tuesday’s episode (
Image:
ITV)Jeff went on to bravely admit he never considered how Jade’s death had affected him, and how he truly felt about it, until he watched a montage of her while on an episode of Loose Women that left him grief stricken.
As grief built-up in Jeff he realised he had unresolved trauma and later went in search of support to ensure he was processing the death of his former partner and mother of his sons.
