Former Loose Women star Saira Khan will be joining Eamonn Holmes on news and opinion channel GB News. It follows a big fall-out between Saira and her ITV bosses, according to The Mirror.
Eamonn took to Twitter to welcome his old friend. The pair will be on air together between 6am and 9.30am every Monday and Tuesday.
Saira joins a host of personalities joining GB News. The on-air line up includes the likes of the Daily Mail’s Andrew Pierce, Camilla Tominey from the Telegraph and polarising figure Nigel Farage, who fronts GB News’s most popular show.
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Both Eamonn and Saira have fallen out with their former ITV bosses in recent months. Eamonn recently reignited his feud with ITV after making savage comments during his show, admitting that there are certain people who are “dead” to him.
Meanwhile, Saira's move comes just months after she revealed the real reason she quit Loose Women to the Mirror. The former panellist claimed bosses tried to make her join soft porn site OnlyFans as a PR stunt.
Saira told how the “shocking” request was the final straw in what she alleged were a string of desperate bids to get publicity for the ITV programme as ratings fell. She said she was also asked to have a mould made of her private parts 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 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.”
“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.”
ITV has come under mounting pressure over the mental health of employees after a series of high-profile 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 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”.
A spokesman for Loose Women said at the time of her claims: “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.”
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