Coleen Nolan


Coleen Patricia Nolan is a British singer, television presenter and author. Nolan was a member of the Irish family girl group, The Nolans, in which she sang with her sisters. She subsequently became a regular panellist on the television chat show Loose Women from 2000 to 2011, and from 2013 onwards.
As a member of The Nolans she first performed on television in 1974. She was a full-time member of the group from 1980 to 1994. The group was particularly successful in Japan, where they won the Tokyo Music Festival in 1981 and a Japanese Grammy Award in 1992. She was a member of the line-up that re-formed for a successful tour of the UK and Ireland in 2009.
From 2001–2002 Nolan co-presented the ITV daytime show This Morning. She returned to the show from 2010–2012 as a presenter of the interactive hub segments. In 2009 she competed in the fourth series of the ITV show Dancing on Ice, where she finished in fourth place. In 2012 she appeared in the 10th series of Channel 5 reality series Celebrity Big Brother, finishing as runner-up. In January 2017 she returned as an all star for the 19th series and went on to win with 33% of the final vote.

Career

On 5 February 1974, Nolan made her first television appearance with her sisters when she was almost nine years old, as the Nolans appeared on the It's Cliff Richard! television series. With the line-up featuring all six sisters and billed as The Nolan Sisters, they performed "Stuck on You". That same year they released their debut single, "But I Do", with Nolan singing lead vocals. Owing to her age, Nolan would not become a full-time member of the group until 1980, when she was fifteen, although she does appear in the music video to their 1979 hit "I'm In the Mood for Dancing", which reached number three in the UK singles chart. They also had UK top twenty hits with "Don't Make Waves", "Gotta Pull Myself Together", "Who's Gonna Rock You", "Attention to Me", "Chemistry" and "Don't Love Me Too Hard". In 1981, they won the Tokyo Music Festival with the song "Sexy Music".
On 14 January 1987, Nolan appeared alongside her sisters Anne, Bernie and Maureen in the BBC sitcom Filthy Rich & Catflap. In 1991, the group won a 33rd Japan Record Awards Kikaku-shō for Cover version of Japanese pops. Nolan left the group in 1994 to concentrate on raising a family, although she did return briefly in 1995 to promote a re-recorded version of "I'm in the Mood for Dancing".
In 2000 Nolan became a regular panellist on ITV's Loose Women. She has been with the series on and off for eleven years. She left Loose Women on 28 July 2011 only to return again on 7 October 2013 as a regular panellist. Since July 2014 Nolan has also been an occasional anchor of the show. In September 2018, Coleen announced she would be taking a long hiatus from Loose Women following the backlash she received from her on air argument with Kim Woodburn. She has since returned.
Nolan presented the programme, The Truth About... Eternal Youth about plastic surgery on ITV in 2009, and presented The Secret Guide To Women's Health in 2010 on Sky Real Lives.
In 2000, Nolan played the part of Janelle Cooper in the short comedy film, Rattler.
Beginning on 11 January 2009 Nolan took part in the fourth series of Dancing on Ice on ITV. Of her appearance on the show Nolan said, "I've never really skated. When I was 14 I used to go to Disco Beat in Blackpool with my friend. We'd skate round once, hanging on to each other, and spend the rest of the night posing, like 14-year-old girls do. I could only go forwards, I couldn't stop!" She was eliminated in week 10, finishing in fourth place. She went on to co-host the spin-off show Dancing on Ice Friday with Ben Shephard in 2010. and on 27 February 2011, she hosted Dancing on Ice, in place of Holly Willoughby who fell ill.
On 15 August 2012 Nolan was announced as the eleventh celebrity to enter the Celebrity Big Brother house on Channel 5.
In 2013 Nolan was a resident agony aunt on the ITV chat show The Alan Titchmarsh Show, appearing on the show every Friday. In 2015 she took part in ITV's Give a Pet a Home series which worked alongside the RSPCA in Birmingham. The show began airing in April 2015, with Amanda Holden as host.
In 2017 Nolan participated in Celebrity Big Brother again. In the house she struck up a good friendship with Game of Thrones actor James Cosmo. On day 18 she was put up for eviction by Jamie O'Hara during a nominations twist in the superheroes shopping task. On day 19 it was revealed that Nolan received the most votes out of her, Chloe Ferry, Kim Woodburn and Jedward in a live flash vote. Also on day 19, she voted for Cosmo to gain eternal immunity which he eventually won after the most housemates voted for him. On Day 32, she was announced as the winner of Celebrity Big Brother 19.
On 3 September 2018, Nolan announced that she would embark on her first solo concert tour, the Never Too Late Tour, in 2019. Originally scheduled to begin on 11 January, the tour was postponed indefinitely on 6 September 2018.

Guest appearances

On 4 March 2002 Nolan was a panellist on BBC panel game show Never Mind the Buzzcocks. On 25 May she appeared on An Audience with Brian Conley. Later in 2002, she took part in the first series of the reality television programme Celebrity Fit Club, which followed overweight celebrities as they tried to lose weight for charity.
On 7 January 2003 Nolan appeared in the documentary We Are Family that chronicled the success stories of various musical acts that were made up of family members. In 2002 and 2003, she was a panellist on the chat show The Wright Stuff on Five and guest hosted the show herself in 2013.
On 3 June 2005 Nolan took part in the first series of the ITV daytime programme, Have I Been Here Before? presented by Phillip Schofield, which offered celebrity guests the chance to see if they have lived before, through past life regression. Nolan was said to have been a "nervous 16-year old debutante".
In September 2006 Nolan returned to Celebrity Fit Club as part of the judging panel in the fourth series. On 6 October she was a guest on The Sharon Osbourne Show and, ten days later, was a guest on the Irish chat show, broadcast and produced by RTÉ, The Podge and Rodge Show.
On 19 September Nolan appeared on Al Murray's Happy Hour and on 27 September she appeared with her family on the third series of All Star Family Fortunes competing against Barry McGuigan and his family. She has also made guest appearances on Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong and The Paul O'Grady Show, both on Channel 4.
On 13 September 2012 she was a guest panellist on an episode of Celebrity Juice on ITV2.
On 15 February 2013 Nolan stood in for Matthew Wright as host of The Wright Stuff on Channel 5.

Other work

Nolan has a weekly column in Best magazine.
In 2007 Nolan featured in television advertisements for the supermarket chain Iceland, along with her sister Bernie and former Loose Women colleague Kerry Katona. She appeared in further commercials for Iceland during the next couple of years. She was also the new face of Park Christmas Savings and appeared in their television advertisements in December 2010.
In early 2008 she released a DVD, A Brand New You, produced with Rosemary Conley.
Nolan made her pantomime debut in 2013, playing the fairy godmother at the Manchester Opera House, and reprised the role in 2017 at the Bradford Alhambra, alongside her son Shane as prince charming.

Personal life

Nolan is the youngest of eight children and the only one born in England. She married Shane Richie in 1990, and they had two sons before splitting up in 1997 and divorcing in 1999. She gave birth to a daughter, Ciara, on 19 June 2001 and became engaged to her longtime boyfriend Ray Fensome when he proposed on her 40th birthday in 2005. They married in November 2007. On 6 February 2018, Nolan announced that she and Fensome were getting divorced after two years of marital difficulties. The divorce was finalised in mid-December 2018, and Nolan said that she and Fensome have been able to remain good friends with each other since the divorce.
Her late mother, Maureen, was an Alzheimer's sufferer. In 2006 Nolan opened the first Alzheimer's Society information centre on the Fylde coast. Maureen died on 30 December 2007.

Controversies

Nolan has gained media attention, at times for controversial statements and opinions. In 2005, on Loose Women, she claimed that if her 16-year-old son passed his exams then she would pay for him to go on a sex trip to Amsterdam and that she had given her fiancé Ray Fensome permission to have a one-night stand during the proposed trip. She was criticised by Shane Richie, who said he was "disgusted and appalled" by her comments about their son, and that he hoped and assumed "it was said in total jest." English doctor and author Miriam Stoppard said of Nolan's comments, "the world's gone insane" and claimed that Nolan seemed to be shirking her responsibilities to deliver sex education.
However, Nolan defended her comments, saying that she had told her son that she would pay for a long weekend for him anywhere in the world and that he had mentioned how he and his mates had "always wanted to go to Amsterdam to see the red light district. If he planned to go on a trip to Ibiza everybody would have thought that was fine, even though he would probably have unprotected sex with lots of girls." In the News of the World newspaper she said, "In an ideal world I'd never condone my son sleeping with hookers, but it's a fact of life that boys of his age have casual sex. So if I'm pushed, I'd rather he does it somewhere well-policed and where the girls have health checks than behind the wall of a club in Ibiza with absolutely no safeguards."
She added about her comments about Fensome, "In all honesty, I couldn't care less . What bothers me more is the thought of Ray going into a bar, chatting up a really stunning girl, having sex with her, spending the night and waking up with her the next morning. I couldn't cope with that."
In January 2007 Nolan courted further controversy when, during a debate on Loose Women about gay adoption, she stated that gay people should not be allowed to adopt children, and said that "there's only so much I want to accept".
In May 2015 she sparked outrage from viewers by comparing gay rights with supporting ISIS and by saying that bakery owners should be permitted to discriminate against same-sex couples who wish to buy a wedding cake. Her comments were made on Loose Women after a Belfast bakery company was successfully sued for refusing to bake a cake in support of same-sex marriage. Following the show viewers took to Twitter and called for ITV to fire Nolan for making the comments.
In August 2018 she and fellow panellists Linda Nolan, Janet Street-Porter and Linda Robson caused controversy due to their actions in an on-air argument with Kim Woodburn, which led to the latter leaving the show during an advertisement break. Woodburn, with whom Coleen had an onscreen history of a sour relationship, had been invited on the show to reconcile with Nolan. The row led to over 7,000 complaints to Ofcom, mostly centring on Nolan and her fellow panellists bullying of Woodburn. The controversy led her to take a break from Loose Women and also postpone her Never Too Late solo concert tour. Her management said that she was not strong enough to handle the criticism and it was unknown when she would return but it was assured that she is still a member of the Loose Women panel. She returned to the panel on 3 December 2018.

Biography