After sensationally quitting Loose Women to start a doomed business, Andrea McLean lost everything including her home. But she says rock bottom only made her marriage stronger
When Andrea McClean announced she was leaving Loose Women live on air in November 2020, the admission shocked fans. But the presenter, 56, who had hosted the ITV show for 13 years, assured viewers that the sky was the limit for her fledgling business, the wellness, retail, and life-coaching platform, This Girl is on Fire. But it wasn’t to be.
Flash forward to 2026, and Andrea has revealed to the Mirror that her business failed so catastrophically that she lost her home and every penny she had, ending up in debt to a tune of hundreds of thousands. “My personal experience right now is of excruciating shame, as a result of financial ruin,” says Andrea, who was forced to sell her £1m Surrey home and move into rented accommodation.
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“I lost my home, my pension, all my savings. We maxed out credit cards, there was so little in my bank account, it was minus. I was selling furniture to pay for groceries. There were bailiffs at the door. I went on Indeed and was literally applying for jobs in coffee shops, clothes shops, and for office work. I’ve never been on Tinder, but I assume it was like being on Tinder and nobody swiped right for me. It was literally, nobody cares. I didn’t even get a response.”
But despite incredible adversity, thrice-married Andrea says hitting rock bottom has made her bond to her husband Nick Feeney all the stronger. “This one is going to stick,” she jokes, keen sense of humour still intact. Andrea has been married to life coach Nick since 2017. She was previously wed to TV presenter Steve Toms from 2009 to 2012, and before that her childhood sweetheart Nick Green from 2000 to 2005. “When my last two marriages ended, there was a lot of laying on the floor and crying,” says Andrea. “And when I met my husband now, who is the current longest serving Mr McLean, I was done. I was like, ‘I’m not interested’. This is clearly not what I’m cut out to do. I’m just gonna focus on my garden.
“But actually I have ended up with someone who is my best friend. It doesn’t sound like a very romantic thing, but actually to be with someone who is the first person you want to tell great news to or the first person you want to moan at when you’ve missed your train – that is love. We sit in silence at night time and send each other funny memes on our phone. That is literally our love language.
“We’re still together throughout it all. We’re still friends. We still love each other and I don’t know many couples who could come through what we’ve been through. We learned to appreciate the free things in life, the little things. Walking the dog along the beach, looking out to sea and chatting about life. It’s not big fancy things, but it fills your heart.”
There was a time not so long ago, however, that Andrea and Nick couldn’t even afford a croissant. As the doomed business tanked, she had a meeting with investors. “They told me that my ‘star had faded’,” says Andrea. “Nobody was interested anymore. It’s hideous, a horrible feeling. You are still you, a person with a heart and feelings and everything else, but you realise that your worth is not tied up in what your capabilities are. Your worth is tied up in what your currency is seen to be, your value to other people and believe me I now know how fast that currency can go.
“I remember years ago there was a story about a pop star selling burgers outside of a football thing and people were so mean to them. You wouldn’t sneer at someone in a burger van generally speaking. And so why is it okay to do it because someone who had a different job is now running a burger van?”
Andrea started a media coaching company to stay afloat. But just as her head was finally above water, at the end of 2024, she almost died. “Over Christmas and New Year, I was feeling really rough. But when you’re really sick, you don’t know how sick you are. I collapsed in the bathroom. I only managed to get help because my husband was downstairs, I was shouting at my phone to call for him,” she says.
“I got pneumonia, sepsis and kidney failure. We were told by the doctors that if I’d waited another day, I’d have died. By that point my wee was brown and that is a sign that your kidneys are shutting down. We felt we hit rock bottom and then we didn’t realise that rock bottom has a trap door and you can still keep falling through it.”
To make ends meet she sold her home and moved into rented accommodation. “I loved that house,” says Andrea, who has two children from previous relationships: a son named Finlay and a daughter named Amy. “It was the home that I bought when I got divorced. It was my safe space. It was mine. I had also put my heart and soul into the garden because when I got divorced, I went to agricultural college and did a garden design course. When we realised we’d have to sell the house, I thought, ‘I’ve just got the roses to join over the door. It’s taken me years’. But I very quickly went into practical mode. Aren’t I lucky that I have a house I can sell? Aren’t I lucky that I can do this? It’s fine. I’ll get another house.”
Andrea has now put pen to paper to write a new book, Shameless: Finding Freedom and Resilience Through Failure, in which she lays bare her money woes and unpacks other areas of shame she’s experienced throughout her life.
“Money is one of the last real taboos. We’d rather talk about anything else than actually discuss what is in our bank account,” says Andrea. I didn’t want anyone around me to know what was going on with me. I hid it. I couldn’t afford a takeaway coffee, but instead of saying that, I would ask someone for a coffee, say ‘I’ve just had one’ and then go without.”
She’s finally letting go of shame, she says. “I’ve had shame my whole life. I was told it would be career suicide to talk about menopause, I was shamed for marrying three times. And leaving Loose Women I fell from a great height. I was totally humiliated. In terms of public embarrassment, I told the whole country that I was going to do something and it didn’t work. How embarrassing is that? I lost everything, my health, my home. But I’ve come out the other side.
“I will always just keep going. Always. Because what’s the other option? There is no other option. I still have a family to support. I still have kids who need me. People may say, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, that’s just that woman off the telly. What does she know about hardship?’ but I can truly say, I do.”
*Shameless: Finding Freedom and Resilience Through Failure by Andrea McLean is published by DK RED, out 21 May
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