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Andrea McLean in tears on Loose Women during chat about her battle with post-natal depression

The Scottish presenter was speaking about the person who helped her through her struggles

Andrea McLean broke down in tears during today’s Loose Women as she spoke about her battle with post-natal depression.

Andrea and her fellow Loose ladies, Nadia Sawalha, Janet Street Porter and Stacey Solomon, were talking about their heroes.

The presenter struggled to hold back her emotions after talking about how her make-up artist Donna helped her seek help after the birth of her daughter Amy.

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Andrea explained to viewers that they could nominate a Lighten The Load Hero in their life who had helped them through something.

Tearing up Andrea revealed that she wanted to nominate Donna after she urged her to seek help during the star’s battle with depression.

The 47-year-old said: “I would like to nominate my hero. It’s someone that I work with here on Loose Women.

“You wouldn’t necessarily think a work colleague is someone you would open up with because when you come to work you put your work face on and you present your best possible self.

“Whereas you keep hidden something that might be bothering you. For me it was post-natal depression.”

She continued: “I was being so careful to make sure I was coming across as professional and the one person who saw through all of that was Donna,” before starting to tear up.

She said: “Oh gosh, I can’t believe this is going to make me cry. Donna is my friend and make-up artist and all she said was ‘I think you need to get help’ and it was just those little words that made me go to the doctors and get some medical help.”

The mum-of-two then broke down as fellow panellist Stacey gave her a comforting cuddle.

Andrea then went ahead and brought Donna onto the stage as the audience applauded.

Hugging her friend Andrea told her: “I just wanted to say thank you and you’re my hero and I’m going to buy you a drink!”

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The brunette beauty then revealed that Donna had even set her up with partner Nick Feeney.

Andrea has been open about her struggle with depression and last year spoke about the issue on the panel.

Speaking to her co-hosts she revealed: “I had postnatal depression for two years before I finally went to the doctors. It’s something I suffered from and hid.

“Now what’s really interesting is we’re all really talkative women and I’ve been working on this show for nine years now and I had it while I was on this show.

“A lot of people obviously see me and I’ve been in hair and makeup and I’m all professional and I do my job smiling, interacting, being interested and engaged but what I was doing was literally sobbing all the way home.”

During the heartbreaking chat she added: “I felt that my family would be better off without me. I felt that my daughter would be better off without me.”

The bubbly host revealed that anti-depressants helped her overcome the illness.

She said: “It doesn’t work for everyone and I’m not on them now, but a month later you know when your fuse box goes at home and some of the switches go down, they went and came back up again.

“Suddenly I could see colour in my life again and that’s the only way I could describe it.”


Rebecca Carter
Associate Editor (News)

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