Loose Women star Carol McGiffin has broken her silence following announcing her departure from the popular ITV daytime show.
Carol, 63, has been part of Loose Women's panel for the best part of 23 years since making her debut on screen in 2000. She had three stints on the show; initially between 2000 and 2001 before returning two years later.
The broadcaster was a regular panelist for more than a decade before she left the show in 2013, only to return once again five years later.
A disagreement is said to have broken out between Carol and ITV bosses over the question of free speech and expression.
In an interview with TNT talk radio, Carol said: "I always look back at when I started working in television and radio as the good old days because they were much less policed, I suppose. Much less restricted and it was a freer place to be.
"When I look back at the old Loose Womens I used to do from 2000 all the way until I left in 2013, they're completely different. There is so much offence. People take so much offence at so much and they never used to."
Tensions grew between Carol and ITV over comments she made to suggest that news organisations had been "brainwashing" the public over the risks of Covid in order to spark widespread mental health breakdowns.
She also suggested the then health secretary Matt Hancock attempted to bring Covid patients from France to the UK to fill empty hospital beds while the pandemic raged.
Earlier this month, Carol confirmed her official exit from the ITV daytime panel show after being absent from the show for more than two months.
Writing in her Best magazine column, she said: "I haven't been on the show for two months now because I've had to step away from it.
"The problem was, ITV were insisting, for the first time since I went back in 2018, that if I wanted to carry on doing the show, I would have to sign a contract that was totally unjust and unworkable for me, so I had to say no thanks.
"And I know it looks like I've thrown my toys out of the pram, but the whole saga was affecting my health. It's not really that I've left, I'm just not doing it at the moment."
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