Loose Women star Carol McGiffin is forced to leave show in a row over Covid conspiracy views after bizarre radio messages
Loose Women ITV star Carol McGiffin was forced to quit after a bizarre radio message, including the claim that the Covid pandemic was a World Health Organization plot to take over any government.
Ms McGiffin, 63, revealed last week that she had left the lunchtime show in protest at ITV’s insistence that she sign a contract with clauses that were ‘totally unfair and unworkable’.
Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal that an argument over free speech was central to her departure, following a response to her tirade in an interview on TNT talk radio.
In it, original Loose Women panelist Ms. McGiffin also accused reputable mainstream news organizations of conspiring to brainwash the public, causing a mass mental health crisis, after being “bought off by the government.”
She added that she thought then Health Secretary Matt Hancock was trying to bring in Covid patients from France at the height of the pandemic to fill ’empty hospital beds’ in Britain.
Loose Women ITV star Carol McGiffin (right), pictured on the show with actress Sally Lindsay, was forced to quit after a bizarre radio message, which included the claim that the Covid pandemic was a World Health Organization plot to take over any government
Carol McGiffin, 63, revealed last week that she had left the lunchtime show in protest at ITV’s insistence that she sign a contract with clauses that were ‘totally unfair and unworkable’.
ITV chiefs saw a backlash against her social media diatribe, with others calling the network to demand she be sacked.
Mrs. McGiffin, who was married to DJ Chris Evans from 1991 to 1998, last appeared on Loose Women on March 2, a week before her TNT Radio interview for The Freeman Report with James Freeman.
She was a regular of Loose Women from 2000 to 2013 and then again from 2018.
But in her radio interview, she scheduled the show, one of ITV’s most popular daytime programmes, hinting that she had been censored by the bosses.
She said: ‘I always look back to the good old days when I started working in television and radio, because there were a lot less police, I think. Much less restricted and it was a freer place to be.
“When I look back at the old Loose Womens I did from 2000 until I left in 2013, they are completely different. There is so much annoyance. People take so much offense at so much and they never did before.’
Last Thursday, Ms McGiffin said she was forced to leave the show after a row over her contract that had been running since January.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that an argument over free speech was central to her departure, following a response to her rant in an interview on TNT talk radio
She said: “The problem was that for the first time since I went back in 2018, ITV insisted that if I wanted to keep doing the show I would have to sign a contract which was totally unfair and unworkable for me, so I had to say: ‘ ‘No thanks”. No one in their right mind would have signed that contract.’
An ITV spokesman said: ‘ITV will not comment on speculation around individual contracts.
“We understand that Carol has decided to leave Loose Women and we wish her well.”