Sunday Mirror

OnlyFans site was the last straw.. I quit SAIRA KHAN

...on the real reason she left Loose Women »»Toxic requests left me feeling humiliated

- BY LAURA CONNOR

FORMER Loose Women star Saira Khan has finally revealed the real reason she quit the show – claiming bosses tried to make her join soft porn site OnlyFans as a PR stunt.

Saira, 52, told how the “shocking” request was the final straw in what she alleges was a string of desperate bids to get publicity for the ITV programme as ratings slipped.

She revealed how she was also asked to have a mould made of her vagina for a Body Stories campaign.

Saira alleged bosses cared more about viewing figures than her mental health.

Speaking about ITV culture in the wake of Jeremy Kyle and Love Island scandals following the suicides of contestant­s, Saira claims:

■ She would frequently go home crying over producers’ unreasonab­le requests

■ She was used as clickbait to help get the show recommissi­oned and bosses would “rub their hands with glee” at negative stories

■ She was offered no support when she became a target for trolls and threats to her family’s safety.

Saira said: “The straw that broke the camel’s back was when one of the young producers was sent running after me to ask whether I would be prepared to open an OnlyFans account.” OnlyFans is a site where users post soft porn images of themselves for cash.

“To say I was shocked was an understate­ment,” Saira added. “I could see she herself was mortified to ask me. I replied, ‘You’re asking an Asian woman who has a husband and kids and comes from a Muslim family to open an OnlyFans account?’

“She said, ‘It’s just on your social media you’ve been posting images in your underwear and we thought if you could go undercover to see the kind of response you get from men, it would make a great story’.

“There and then, I knew my time was up on the show. I felt humiliated, angry, disappoint­ed and like fodder.”

As she writes in her Sunday Mirror column today, Saira says she decided to speak out after Fearne Cotton’s decision to step back from TV and radio to preserve her mental health.

ITV has come under mounting pressure over the mental health of employees after a series of highprofil­e suicides, including that of former Love Island host Caroline Flack aged 40. And The Jeremy

Kyle Show was axed in 2019 after Steve Dymond, 63, killed himself just seven days after taking part in the programme.

Mum-of-two Saira said: “The system is toxic. They do not have people who have the expertise to introduce wellbeing and mental health care.”

She told of her humiliatio­n when asked to pose for a mould of her vagina. Members of the Loose Women panel and production team contribute­d to a piece of artwork made up of plaster moulds of female genitalia to encourage women to accept their vaginas are “normal”.

Despite repeatedly refusing and saying she was uncomforta­ble with

it, she claims she continued to be harassed by producers. “They just saw me as PR fodder with no respect for my background or culture,” she said.

Saira also complained that an underwear photo of herself was used in another campaign without her having approved it.

She said: “I love TV presenting, but I knew that for the sake of my mental health and my family, I just

could not carry on in such toxic working conditions.”

She claimed that the culture of Loose Women encouraged the presenters to argue which made her “into a bitchy person I don’t want to be”. She added: “I started to realise they just wanted me to tick the box of ‘gobby Muslim woman’.”

Saira, who quit the show last year, claimed comments taken out of context would be packaged up and used as clickbait, and often she

would have to deal with the subsequent trolling and death threats. “I was never sat down and reassured to make sure I was OK,” she said.

A spokesman for Loose Women said: “We strongly refute all of these claims. Duty of care is of paramount importance for all of our panellists. Saira left the panel almost two years ago and we wish her well.”

A source added: “Loose Women Investigat­es is a strand which has seen reports into a range of topics.

Sites such as OnlyFans could always potentiall­y be the subject of an investigat­ion. The Body Stories campaign tackled the taboo of vagina dysmorphia back in 2017. Saira was not involved in this campaign.

“We were told Saira was leaving to focus on her ‘businesses and online’ and that ‘she has nothing but good things to say about the show’.

“We are therefore surprised to hear these claims.”

laura.connor@mirror.co.uk

 ?? ?? ON CAMERA
Saira in an exercise demo
SPEAKING OUT Saira says she left for the sake of her mental health
»»No respect for my SHOW GIRLS Posing with some of her fellow pannellist­s
background & culture
ON CAMERA Saira in an exercise demo SPEAKING OUT Saira says she left for the sake of her mental health »»No respect for my SHOW GIRLS Posing with some of her fellow pannellist­s background & culture

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