Carol was on the show for 18 years

Former Loose Women star Carol McGiffin has launched a scathing rant against the show and ITV, as she claims she was “forced out” due to contract changes.

The 65-year-old TV star appeared on Loose Women from 2000 until 2013. Then she returned in 2018 and stayed until 2023. But it seems during her time on the show, she saw a lot of changes, and some of them she really didn’t like.

And now, two years after her final departure, Carol has claimed that, while she chose to leave, she left because she was “forced out” by logistics.

Carol McGiffin believes Loose Women changed following the pandemic (Credit: Grant Buchanan / SplashNews.com)

Carol McGiffin ‘forced out’ of Loose Women

Speaking on Andrew Gold’s Heretics podcast, Carol admitted she didn’t like the way the show changed following the Covid-19 pandemic.

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.”

Carol admitted the changes got “exhausting” and “tiring” but that’s “not the reason” she left. Instead, she feels that 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.

“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,’” she claimed.

‘It wasn’t worth it’

Carol clarified that she had a limited company which she paid tax for but she wasn’t a personal taxpayer and the changes would have been “too complicated and too difficult”.

She continued: “They weren’t offering anything else. They were offering a contract that wasn’t a contract. And they kept saying: ‘You’re not employed by ITV but you are on an employment contract.’ None of it made sense and I just thought it wasn’t worth it.”

She hasn’t been on the ITV daytime show in two years (Credit: YouTube)

The show became ‘censored’

Carol went on to praise the Loose Women “back in the day”, which she believes was when it was “brilliant”.

Revealing when she began noticing the changes, Carol said: “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.”

When asked what had changed in all those years, Carol stated it was the pandemic – which she doesn’t believe was real.

She said: “Well, we didn’t have the fake pandemic back then. And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back really.”

Carol continued: “You couldn’t have a different opinion. I was anti-mask, anti-lockdown. I was anti all of those things. The day they locked down, we were talking about it on the show. And we were all talking about if we thought it was a good idea to lock everything down and everyone said yes. But I said no, absolutely not.”

ITV ‘forced’ Carol out (Credit: YouTube)

Loose Women now – Carol’s take

Later on the podcast, Carol was asked if there was anything that would “shock” the audiences about how the show is set up. But she admitted she doesn’t “think people care” about the show any more.

She said: “I don’t know why people watch it now. They used to watch it to have a laugh and get involved. We used to be able to do really stupid things all of the time. That’s why people used to watch it then.

“I’m not really sure why people watch it now. But it probably has something to do with having nothing better to do.”

When asked if she thinks she would ever be “allowed” to go back to TV, Carol admitted: “No, I don’t think so.”