Saira Khan admits she had to 'tolerate' certain Loose Women co-stars

After quitting the show (opens in new tab), Loose Women star Saira Khan has admitted that she had to 'tolerate' some of her co-stars on the panel over the years. 

Following her exit after a five year stint on the show, Saira hinted that things weren't always picture perfect behind the scenes as she told Scott McGlynn’s  (opens in new tab)Celebrity Skin Talk that there are some other panellists who she “really doesn’t miss at all”.

"You make friends with some people, you tolerate some people, and some people you just have to do a job with." She said during the hour-long Instagram Live last week.

"I'm not going to go into the nitty gritty there now. But there are some friends, some people I will be close to because we share, because we get each other. And there are some I really don't miss at all who I was just like, 'I just have to tolerate you to do the job'."

She added, "You have to be professional about it. You can't pretend that everyone is going to be your best friend. Especially on a show with opinions, you're not going to tolerate everybody's opinion. I think that's fine. That's not a problem, but you just have to do it with respect and you have to be open-minded."

Saira recently came under fire for some anti-lockdown comments (opens in new tab) she made on the show, prompting a flurry of Ofcom complaints from viewers but said in the interview that there were times where her mind was changed by one of the other panellists.

She also addressed her reasons for leaving during the chat when she said, “I’ve been on there five years and the show is about sharing and there comes a point in your life when you think, ‘you know what? I’ve done as much sharing as I can now. Now I’m gonna start making it up. I’ve got to start coming up with stories to stay on the show’."

"I think you owe it to yourself when you think, ‘I’ve done the best that I can, now let’s give somebody else a go.’”

Saira said in the interview that she was happy to see Charlene White (opens in new tab) join the show, who was the replacement for Andrea McLean (opens in new tab), but she said, "I now think we need LGBTQ representation."

The former Apprentice star had called for this in her Mirror column over Christmas, where she announced her departure from the show, saying that LGBTQ panellist would  "better reflect the world around us".