Loose Women panellist Denise Welch said she took issue with the “patronising” tone directed at her and confronted the boss face-to-face on set
15:53, 18 Nov 2025Updated 16:01, 18 Nov 2025
Denise Welch demanded an apology from her former boss
Loose Women star Denise Welch revealed she once confronted a TV director and demanded an apology following an on-set clash. The 67-year-old said the incident occurred while filming a show she didn’t name, after her boss spoke to her in a “patronising” manner.
Speaking on Loose Women’s Just Between Us podcast with co-star GK Barry, she revealed: “So I was on set many, many, years ago in a show 30 years ago and we had rehearsed for the cameras about 20 times.
“It was a tricky shot. Sugar glass had to fall, something had to come out of it. I will rehearse till the cows come home, rehearse, rehearse, then they said, ‘Okay, turn over.’
“And I just said, ‘Oh, hang on a minute. Excuse me. Could we just have one rehearsal for the actors?’. And the director said, ‘It’s okay. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. We won’t make you look bad’.”
Denise Welch branded her former boss ‘patronising'(Image: YOUTUBE/JUSTBETWEENUS)
Explaining her reaction, Denise recalled: “And I just said, ‘Okay, I’m just going to take my pretty little head to my dressing room until you come and apologise to me’. Because that patronising is very different to having a little bit of banter. Do you know what I mean?”.
Following GK’s praise for taking a stand and departing the set, Denise said it was reported that she had “stormed off the set” at the time. “I mean I never regretted it,” she added.
“And I think because, when you are well behaved, you do toe the line, you’re not remotely diva-ish, it does have more of an effect when [something] like that happens.”
When pressed on whether the boss eventually said sorry, Denise revealed he did but “in a sort of, ‘You took it the wrong way’ sort of way, which it was my fault obviously. But, the people that I wanted to had seen it [did] on the monitors, so they they knew which way that went.”
Denise Welch is a regular panellist on Loose Women(Image: ITV)
Denise opened up about the incident after a listener sought advice on handling a difficult boss at a firm without HR support.
Offering her guidance, the actress suggested contacting Citizens Advice, who provide free online help on everything from debt to workplace troubles.
This isn’t the first occasion Denise has spoken candidly about her past roles.
Previously reflecting on shifts she’d witnessed at Coronation Street, the actress insisted that the programme had become too fixated on attracting younger audiences.
The soap star, who portrayed landlady Natalie Horrocks from 1997 to 2000, remarked in 2017: “That show over the years – and it is under different producers now – has become obsessed with this youth thing. Everything has got to be about the youth.
Denise Welch played Coronation Street’s land lady Natalie Barnes
“But kids don’t watch television like they used to – it’s almost redundant. They’re watching everything on their laptops and have short attention spans.”
In a conversation about ageism on BUILD, she went on to say: “When you watch Coronation Street, you talk to anybody – even the young people who do – and they don’t want to see everything about the young ones. They want the Helen Worths and the Sue Nicholls and Barbara Knox.
“Those wonderful women bringing such humour and character it – it’s not just about [the young characters] and people do feel that.”
Loose Women airs weekdays from 12.30pm on ITV and ITVX