Saira Khan: “I keep in touch with all the Loose Women via WhatsApp”
The presenter opens up about her close friendships, body confidence and reveals how her husband REALLY feels when she discusses their sex life on TV...
She’s best known for being part of TV’s ultimate girl gang as one of the presenters on Loose Women, but while the hit show has been temporarily cancelled amid the coronavirus crisis, Saira Khan insists all of the hosts – including Andrea McLean, Nadia Sawalha, Stacey Solomon and Janet Street-Porter – are just as close off screen.
Saira, 49, says, “We have a WhatsApp group, and we have a laugh – but also we ask for advice and we all know what’s going on in each other’s lives. It’s hard to explain, because it’s not the kind of friendship
I’ve ever experienced before. It’s so open – we talk about things that it might take somebody years to talk about. I go, ‘Oh Nads, I sneezed the other day and I weed my pants’, and she goes, ‘I’ve got a cure for that!’ We don’t feel embarrassed because we’ve known each other for so long.”
SUPPORTIVE
Recently, the magazine-style panel show hit the headlines when actress and panellist Linda Robson talked about her battle with alcoholism and anxiety, revealing she’d had a two-month stay in rehab as a result.
And Saira, who’s so proud of her friend, says it’s the supportive nature of the show that enabled her to open up.
She says, “It was so brave of Linda. Behind the scenes, we know what she’s been going through. It’s not easy, when you get older, to say, ‘I’m not okay, things are catching up with me’. I think the fact she did it on Loose Women shows what a supportive environment it is.
“There are no other women on a TV show who come out there and just say, ‘This is what’s going on in my life’. And that’s why, when the National Television Awards come around and we don’t win, we go, ‘Oh please!’ It’s because we’re so passionate.”
Saira first rose to fame in 2005 when she was runner-up on The Apprentice, and then went on to star on Celebrity Big Brother and Dancing On Ice. She’s been married to husband Steve – with whom she shares son Zachariah, 11, and daughter Amara, eight – for 16 years. While he stays out of the public eye, Saira often talks about him while discussing issues on the show.
She’s even talked about their sex life on air, revealing last year she’d lost her libido during the menopause. She’s also previously chatted about times when things were good “in the bedroom department”.
She previously said, “It’s Steve’s laid-back nature that drew us together.” She adds she’s grateful he doesn’t mind her loose lips; she once revealed she’d said he could sleep with another woman as she’d lost her sex drive.
BALANCE
She says, “I need someone like my husband Steve as a partner. When I go home, I’m like, ‘Steve, I’ve just told the whole world about our sex life, I’m really sorry.’ And he doesn’t go mental – he just goes, ‘Okay, why did you have to do that?’ He’s just level-headed. We balance each other out.
“He married me because I’m the total opposite of him. If you met Steve, you’d be like, ‘Why are these two together?’ He’s so calm and measured and chilled out. Opposites really do attract.”
Saira’s one of the most honest, upfront and open stars of Loose Women, never afraid to hold back or voice her opinion. And last year, she revealed even more of herself when she stripped down for a photo shoot – as well as
posing in just her underwear with the other panellists, for an empowering campaign about body confidence the year before.
EMPOWERING
Last week, Saira revealed she’d lost weight and toned up after seven weeks of gym training, showing on Instagram how she could now fit into a pair of jeans that, before, she hadn’t been able to get past her thighs.
And as she gears up for her milestone birthday of 50 later this year, Saira says she’s never felt more body confident, revealing, “I’ve done a few ‘nudies’ and I tell you what, they were so bloody empowering. I was nervous, I was scared, but it felt so great.
“I used to worry about my body. But to do a ‘nudie’, it felt amazing and I loved it. I think every woman should do one for the confidence you get afterwards.
“And it’s my fiftieth this year! It’s a big milestone for women nowadays. It’s a great time in your life. I’ll do another nudie in a few years, in my mid-fifties – 100 per cent!”
● Closer spoke to Saira at the launch of Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia in London. For more information, go to Cirquedusoleil.com
‘I’ll do another nudie shoot in my mid
fifties’