LooseLife sees Westlife takeover Loose Women

Loose Women saw a panel takeover in a segment of today’s show – legendary boyband Westlife were guest hosts to mark the release of their new album.

On the subject of crying being good for you after experts reveal it helps regulate our emotions and feel a greater sense of calm, Shane Filan admitted, “The last time I had a cry was a couple of months ago after a BBC Radio 2 concert in Belfast. It was an emotional night and my parents passed away in the last year and a half and I don’t think I’d had that moment where I’d properly cried.”

He added,

“I bottled it up and I didn’t realise I’d bottled it up. I cried when they passed away, but for a long time I didn’t cry and was like, ‘I’m kind of dealing with this’ and I felt like I should be worse. But when I did the show in Belfast, I felt really weird all day and I felt nervous going on stage for the first time whereas I’m usually excited and buzzing. Went on the stage and just choked,… You Raise Me Up, I started balling crying in the middle of the song. Like really balled crying.”

Mark Feehily said, ‘I thought I’d have to jump in because I wasn’t sure you were going to get through it.” Shane said,

“Yeah I looked at you a few times and it was like, ‘Man I don’t know if I’m going to get through it’… I realised it was the first show time I was doing a Westlife show without my parents and I was never going to do it again. I cried and ran off stage and Zoe Ball was looking at me like, ‘Oh my God, what’s happening? I went upstairs and had a big cry and you were all there for me.”

Nicky Byrne said, “Isn’t grief funny like that? Myself and Kian have lost parents as well. I always find with grief, it just jumps at you…” Kian Egan said, “Absolutely, sometimes I feel I’m too emotional, I cry too much. I could watch a TV commercial and all of a sudden I can be crying… I’m a blubberer.”

Shane added, “It’s a good thing to cry I think. If you’re sad, cry, if you’re happy, laugh.” Nicky revealed, “When you become a father… just that overwhelming feeling of joy and emotion and to see your other half lying there and then watching them grow up.”

Mark then said “I bottled up my sexuality for 12 years and trust me, it’s not a good thing to do, so definitely let it out.

“Honestly my last cry was the other day…. I don’t usually cry that often. I kind of feel like over the lockdown, we had to hang our Westlife boots for a while and I really got used to the calmness and the serenity of just being in my house… then all of a sudden, we were in the middle of promo, it just goes crazy and it’s like 24/7… I got overwhelmed and I literally started crying. And I was like, ‘What is going on? I don’t cry.'”

On coming out as gay, Mark said, “It’s a very lonely place and when you’re bottling up your emotions, you’re literally keeping them inside and it’s very lonely to be the only person to know something… when it comes out, it’s just a relief.”

The men also discussed new research which revealed the chance of a couple having a baby falls by a third when a potential father is older than 50. Nicky introduced the segment and asked Mark if he had thought about his ‘biological clock’ and Mark revealed, “I thought you were going to ask me if I’ve ever frozen my sperm. That too, yeah.”

“I certainly have thought about my biological clock. My daughter is two and I’m 41. It took a lot of research because we had Layla by surrogacy. It took a lot of research to get to the point of knowing how to do that. Let’s say five years ago, I googled how to do surrogacy and the reason I finally got there, I felt the push and pressure of time and age and myself moving on into my 40s. I just thought, ‘I want to be able to run around with my kids… I don’t want to be too old to play football and I definitely want to go to Ibiza with them when they are 18.'”

He added, “I wanted to still be as young as possible as well as still be a father because I was best friends with my parents as well as the parent child relationship.”

To watch the show in full visit itv.com/hub Loose Women weekdays from 12:30pm on ITV