Loose Women star Nadia Sawalha broke down in tears as she discussed the recent daytime cuts on ITV and admitted her own fears about being axed

Loose Women star Nadia Sawalha has broken rank to openly discuss the ITV daytime cuts. The presenter said she is devastated for her colleagues being made redundant and admits she fears her own exit from the programme.

The ITV programme will be cut to just 30 weeks of the year and the team behind Lorraine, This Morning and Loose Women will all be merged, which will lead to redundancies at ITV. Lorraine Kelly’s show is also being cut to 30 minutes and will air 30 weeks of the year. As a result, Good Morning Britain will be extended until 9.30am each day.

The stars of Loose Women have not yet spoken out about the cuts, with sources claiming that there is much chaos backstage at ITV – but now Nadia has broken rank to discuss the cuts for the first time.

Nadia has been on the panel for years ( 
Image:
Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
In her latest YouTube video, she said: “Do you know what, at the moment, all of us on screen are in work and are proud of what we do. But behind the scenes there are people that are really suffering, and what you don’t realise is when you attack the show you attack them, because you never see all the army of people behind the scenes and how hard they work.

“So to all my friends and colleagues behind the scenes who have just got a huge shock out of the blue, I’m so sorry. Mark knows how upset I’ve been at home about it. I just can’t bear it. So just be f*****g kind to people.”

She then added: “What people don’t realise at Loose Women is that we’re self-employed, I am self-employed. Every contract is a new contract. I could be let go tomorrow, in five years, you don’t know because we’re not employees. So I can’t tell you anything accept I am on for my next contract. What has been brutal over the past week and I am getting tearful about it, is that hundreds of people are going to be made redundant out of the blue.

Nadia was emotional
“A lot of my friends and colleagues have been there for decades and I cannot tell you how upsetting it was to see people walking around numb with shock and fear about what they are going to do. That has been so awful. It has been worse than whatever trolls have been saying about our show that we feel really protective of.”

However, sources have denied any radical changes would be happening. A source told The Mirror: “We are not planning any radical changes to the panel. All of our Loose Women are hugely valued and we celebrate each and every one and the experience and opinions they bring to the show every day.

“Many of our long standing panellists have appeared on the show for the majority of its 25 year run on screens and those stalwart, Loose legends are at the core of the show’s success and hugely popular with the audience. The show remains a big priority within our daytime slate, having secured a BAFTA nomination, launched a podcast and celebrated a milestone anniversary in the last year alone.”

Kevin Lygo, managing director of ITV’s Media and Entertainment Division, has insisted the proposed changes would “generate savings which will allow us to reinvest across the programme budget in other genres”.

He said: “These changes also allow us to consolidate our news operations and expand our national, international and regional news output and to build upon our proud history of trusted journalism at a time when our viewers need accurate, unbiased news coverage more than ever.” Other changes at ITV include moving the soaps – Emmerdale and Coronation Street – to half an hour each weekday, meaning soap fan swill lose a total of an hour of soaps every week.