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Nadia Sawalha has threatened legal action against ITV after claiming she’s been removed from Loose Women due to her vocal support for Palestine.
The presenter and former EastEnders star, 61, alleged that she was temporarily axed from the daytime show in July 2026 and accused ITV of “forever changing the goalposts” in relation to her return.
She claimed the channel’s decision arose from “escalating campaign of smears, complaints, hostile media coverage and targeted calls to have me removed” from the series.
Nadia Sawalha said she was removed from the programme in July 2026 (ITV)
In a video shared on Instagram, Sawalha said: “I want to say how sad I am that it’s got to this. Believe me, I have appealed to ITV’s hearts and minds, but to no avail.
“After I began speaking publicly in support of Palestine in December 2023, I became the target of an escalating campaign of smears, complaints, hostile media coverage and targeted calls to have me removed from Loose Women.”
She said that, after her initial removal, ITV “couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t take me off again, as it would depend on what was said, even though I’m hired for being an opinionated woman on a discussion show and I’ve never brought up or spoken about Palestine directly on the show”.
She called it “the tip of the iceberg of what’s been happening”.
Alongside the lawsuit, Sawalha has launched a petition demanding a public apology from ITV and her reinstatement. The petition has already garnered more than 20,000 signatures.
She said the petition was to show there are “many more people with us than against us”, adding: “It’s not just me that has been targeted like this from my beliefs. There are the teachers, doctors, nurses, charity and supermarket workers, and students who have also spoken according to their conscience and have suffered a similar fate as me. Enough is enough.
“We need to send a clear message to ITV and other groups and corporations that we won’t be scared into silence, and no-one should be bullied out of their job for following their conscience and speaking out against brutal oppression.”
Nadia Sawalha said she was removed from the programme in July 2026 (Channel 5)
Swalha has been supported by another of the show’s panellists, former athlete Dame Kelly Holmes, who said she had “no idea” what had been happening.
“This is just not right or just,” she wrote in response. “I am so sorry, Nadia, no one can even begin to comprehend the ‘fight’ you must have been having behind the scenes. Thanks for sharing this. I had no idea. With you.”
The Independent has contacted ITV for comment.
Sawalha joined the ITV show in 1999 as one of the original panellists alongside Kaye Adams, Jane Moore and Karren Brady. She took a maternity break in 2002 and returned to the programme in 2013.
In 2025, she criticised ITV’s “out of the blue” budget cuts, after the channel announced that Loose Women, alongside other popular daytime talk show Lorraine, would be slashed from one hour to 30 minutes.
Speaking alongside her husband Mark Adderly on the couple’s YouTube channel, she said many people behind the scenes were “really suffering”.
Struggling to contain her tears, Sawalha said: “To all my friends and colleagues behind the scenes who have just got a huge shock out of the blue, I’m so sorry.”
Sawalha is also known for playing Annie Palmer on EastEnders in the late 1990s, and has had roles in ITV comedy Second Thoughts, The Bill and Benidorm. She is also a successful cook and won Celebrity MasterChef in 2007.
Additional reporting by Agencies
