Today Loose Men returned to ITV screens – with previous Loose Men Jordan Banjo and Ore Oduba joined by Loose first-timers Good Morning Britain’s Andi Peters and The Chase’s Shaun Wallace.
On today’s show, the panel spoke about health, marriage and dad guilt, switching deftly between the serious and not-so-serious. The men also opened up about mental health matters, talking frankly about their experiences of negative body image and panic attacks. Ore opened up about his experience of having panic attacks, a subject he spoke about for the first time on Loose Men in November last year, and how he had one in front of his wife for the first time.
On today’s show, he explained, “This time last year, I was still on tour and the guilt that came with that was huge. Getting back to being a parent… trying not to feel that you’re a terrible dad, trying to feel like you’re not a terrible husband, and also trying to put food on the table. We’d spent three months trying to move house and in that time my little boy was starting school and all the pressures were starting to build up.
“For me, I felt like I was pretending. As parents, you spent a long time trying to deflect all of that adult stuff away from your children. You try to make sure that they can be kids. I remember the day before he started school, he was just being a four-year-old – being a bit of a tearaway, didn’t do what I asked, and I got really angry. He started crying because he knew how angry I was.
“It got to that evening and everything started to build up and I hadn’t spoken to anyone about it. I remember I was just washing up and I could feel it building, all the pressure, everything that I’d kept to myself. I just blew up into floods of tears. It was another anxiety attack. It was the first time my wife saw it and didn’t know how to react, but she was amazing and really supportive.”
Jordan bravely opened up about how post-lockdown body shaming made him afraid to leave the house, explaining how a ‘bit of banter’ led to him feeling embarrassed about lockdown weight gain. He also shared how his mental health suffered when his wife Naomi fell seriously ill with sepsis after giving birth to their second child in 2019, explaining how on the outside he was ‘strong’, but “inside I was freaking out”.
Shaun shared why, aged 62, he’s driven to exercise every day – which includes a gruelling 2000 sit ups seven days a week. He explained, “As I’ve grown older, the one thing I’m always conscious about is keeping myself healthy. My mother and father suffer from diabetes, and the one thing I always do is exercise every single day to try and keep myself healthy. Exercise is not for everybody. But I think everybody has a responsibility to keep themselves in shape because it helps you physically and mentally.”
On tattoos, Jordan revealed he’d consider having his brother Ashley’s face inked on his back to match portraits of his mum and dad on his forearms “He’s a personal hero of mine,” admitted Jordan and Chaser Shaun revealed his secret Mastermind tattoos, which commemorate his monumental quiz show win in 2004.
Andi – who admitted he’s still too scared to get inked – surprised the audience with news of his pre-TV career, which involved hanging up pairs of pants in the largest Topshop in London.
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