EXCLUSIVE: Loose Women’s Coleen Nolan invites OK! into her new home, where she’s preparing for Christmas as a single woman after her split from boyfriend Michael Jones
As one of the most refreshingly honest women in the entertainment industry, Coleen Nolan is certainly not afraid of opening up about the more challenging periods of her life, from divorce dramas to health battles. And today is no different. As the Loose Womenpanellist proudly flings open the doors of her beautiful new six-acre farmhouse, which is currently covered in a thick blanket of snow, she has some news to share.
Sadly, it transpires that her relocation to the Staffordshire countryside in June isn’t the only major change in her life – she’s also preparing to enter 2025 as a single woman, following a recent split from her partner Michael Jones. “We’ve decided that we would rather just stay friends, take it as a friendship,” says Coleen, who started dating the supermarket logistics worker in 2021.
“And, you know, it’s nothing to do with anyone else, it’s nobody’s fault.” But I’m really busy and when I’m not really busy with work I’m busy on the farm and I feel personally that I can’t give time to everything. We still get along great and hopefully we can continue to be friends, who knows?”
Coleen’s take on the break-up might sound too good to be true, but it’s coming from a woman who counts her two ex-husbands (actor Shane Richie and musician Ray Fensome) among her best friends. “I think that comes from age and experience,” she says. “With it being my 60th next year I think, ‘I haven’t got time, life’s too short.’ I mean, I hope I have lots of time but I’m not 20 any more, I don’t want to wait for two years and see what happens.
“I’m not going to say it wasn’t sad, because of course it was. But I really hope that once that sadness goes away we can continue to be friends. I don’t regret any of it, it was fabulous. Michael came along at just the right time for me and I think over the last three-and-a-half years we’ve helped each other grow”, she explains. “I always choose to focus on the times that were great, not the sad ending. The last two years of both my marriages were probably horrendous, but equally, the 10 years before were fantastic, so I’d rather focus on that.”
It’s very much a case of onwards and upwards for the former Nolans singer and while there’s obvious heartache over her break-up, it’s eased by the elation of finally achieving “her dream” of owning a real farm, which she shares with daughter Ciara and Ciara’s fiancé Max. “Even when I was little and I was with my sisters, Dad would say to me, ‘You just need to be on a farm, you need to be with animals.’ I can still hear him saying it,” she says.
Her life on the farm (which she admits she would love to film as a reality show!) is a world away from her life on Loose Women. In her rustic, cosy cottage, she’s just a farmer who spends three to four hours a day mucking out and feeding the animals – and she says there’s huge freedom in that.
“It’s just a wonderful feeling, it really is my happy place,” she beams, sitting on the couch in her wonderfully festive lounge. “The best thing about it is, the animals don’t care whether I’ve got make-up on, or what I’m wearing. As long as I’m giving them food, letting them out or taking them for a walk, they don’t care about anything else.
“Because I’m in an industry that is fabulous, but also means you’re judged by everything you do, being on the farm where nothing matters and no one is judging me is a wonderful feeling.”
Coleen’s animal companions currently consist of three horses, five dogs, six cats (including three feral cats, who get to stay warm in winter in her cat patio – “I call it the catio,” Coleen laughs), five ducks, two cockerels, four hens and five pygmy goats. The list is probably around 28 animals too long by most people’s standards, but Coleen is evidently in her element – even when she’s up at the crack of dawn to feed the goats and let out the impatient ducks and hens.
But, of course, Coleen has a secret weapon in the form of daughter Ciara, 23, who lives in what used to be a separate Airbnb home on the plot with fiancé Max. The couple, who got engaged in April while travelling around south-east Asia, moved in over the summer (although somehow managed to miss the packing-up-the-old-house stage, Coleen laughs mischievously), and are the best neighbours she could ask for.
“It’s fabulous because we’re so close, and I know it sounds like a cliché but she’s my best mate and I just love Max,” she says. “If I had to have neighbours, they’d be the ones I’d want. Although I think they think I’m the local Tesco Express because Ciara will come up
and leave with a Tesco bag of whatever she’s found in my fridge. But then she’s like my local restaurant because I’ll go up there for my dinner and then come home again. So, I can’t really complain when she comes and steals the ingredients.”
Ciara is also loving their new dynamic, and couldn’t be more proud – or grateful – to see her mum finally make her farming dreams a reality. “She’s such an inspiration, she’s worked her entire life and to see a nearly 60-year-old woman with all this to herself is so inspiring,” she tells us, with an emphasis on “woman”. “I’m absolutely loving living here. It went from a house to a home within a couple of days. We’re actually living my dream life, too, and I’m so grateful. I couldn’t be more proud of her. I look out my window in the morning and can see the horses and it’s the best feeling.”
Coleen has learnt that, while she herself is in the public eye, her children’s private lives are very much that – private. But we can’t help ourselves and have to ask Ciara about Max’s romantic Vietnam proposal. “It sounds really romantic, but the man rowing our boat was coughing and spitting the entire time and Max was shaking like a leaf so he couldn’t really get his words out,” Ciara says, giggling. “He also proposed with an £8 plastic ring from one of the markets. But, a couple of days later, we arranged to make our own rings. The evening was imperfectly perfect. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
There hasn’t been any wedding planning yet, mainly because “we’re broke and enjoying being young, wild and free”, she grins. Coleen’s two older children, Jake and Shane, who she shares with her first husband Shane Richie, are also making their mum proud at the moment. Jake, 32, a singer and actor, has just become a first-time parent with his fiancée, and baby Rudy, Coleen tells us proudly, has already well and truly stolen her heart.
“He’s so tiny, it’s like holding a bag of sugar, but a bag of sugar that I completely fell in love with,” she grins. “Jake and his fiancée are quite private so I’m not allowed to share photos of Rudy, but I told Jake he couldn’t stop me talking about him!
“They’re all doing amazingly, and Jake has already gone way past my expectations. I was watching him during the pregnancy and he was just incredibly supportive, and when I visited them the other week, his fiancée said to me, ‘I knew he would be good at this
but I didn’t know how good he’d be.’ I was very proud of both of them.”
Things are also looking up for Coleen’s eldest son Shane, 36, who went through a public break-up from his Miss Great Britain wife, Maddie Wahdan, in 2023. He’s found a new partner in Kim Sallis, who has a daughter, Courtney, from a previous relationship. Coleen still has a lot of love for Maddie, but is thrilled her son “has dealt with, and is dealing with, his demons”, she tells us.
Kim has also brought another benefit to the Nolan family farm – a keen eye for interior design (and a very welcome offer to cook the Christmas dinner!). “Shane and Kim locked me out of my new bedroom and said they were going to do it up as my Christmas present,” says Coleen, grinning. “They decorated the whole room while I was locked out. Kim did all the design, painted it all and bought the bedside lamps and bed linen. They couldn’t have got me anything better, it’s amazing.”
Kim, Courtney and Shane will be spending Christmas Day at Coleen’s, along with Ciara, Max, Max’s mum and nana, and Ciara’s dad, musician Ray Fensome. It’s a very special day for Coleen, and she laughs as she says she still sends “the kids” to bed early on Christmas Eve (and also takes a final look out of the window to look for a sleigh before going to sleep…) so that Santa can visit.
There’s already a Christmas tree that almost touches the beamed ceiling in her cosy lounge, which is her favourite room in the house, and presents around her brick fireplace (which, she tells us proudly, was covered by plasterboard before she rolled up her sleeves and got stuck in to renovating it).
As well as turning 60 in March, next year officially marks 25 years of Coleen’s time on Loose Women, having joined the show in its very first year on air. Since then she’s seen panellists come and go, cried many a tear of laughter as well as sadness, and had
some explosive on-air disagreements. So, how does it feel to celebrate a quarter of a century as an almost daily face on telly?
“My whole life has changed since then, I’ve lived my life on Loose Women and equally I’ve learnt a lot and I’ve grown a lot. When I think back to my opinions on certain things 24 years ago compared to my opinions now, they’re so different. I look back sometimes and think, ‘Why would I have ever thought that?’ But I was in my early thirties when I started, and now I’m nearly 60. I’ve had kids who’ve taught me so much, life has changed and the world has changed. I’m so much more confident now in who I am.”
While she wouldn’t change anything about her time on the panel, the only thing Coleen doesn’t enjoy so much now is how “restricted” the panellists are. “Back then, you could say what you wanted, and while people might not have agreed with you, it didn’t mean you were ‘cancelled’ or never going to work again. Now we have to be really careful, and edit ourselves. That’s the only slightly negative change. I’ve still loved every minute of it.”
The ITV show has been the subject of much talk this year, with lots of it surrounding Ruth Langsford’s divorce from Eamonn Holmes. When we ask Coleen about it, and what she makes of the fact Ruth has kept a very dignified silence on the subject, her response is honest, yet considered.
“I know I couldn’t do it,” she laughs. “I think she’s been amazing, the way she’s held it all together. It’s not my place to comment on her marriage, it wouldn’t be right of me, but in terms of being there as her friend, I’ve supported her as much as I know she would support me. I’m in awe of her, the way she’s handled herself. She’s such a dignified lady and she looks the best she’s ever looked, in my opinion. She’s a trooper, and I’ll always be there for her.”
Another Loose Women colleague getting a lot of attention at the moment is Jane Moore, who’s just been in the I’m A Celebrity jungle. Coleen, of course, loved watching her friend in the camp, especially during the trials.
“It makes it a different show when there’s someone in there you know, but she was just being Jane, and I’m glad she got to do some trials because she really wanted to experience them. Just sitting round doing nothing drives her nuts, and even if it’s stuff she’s frightened of, she gives it a good go”, she says. “I’m in awe of them all, I’d have made Dean [McCullough] look good. You think he can scream? You should hear me. No, I’d much rather do a reality show about life on the farm. That’s the next big dream.”