TV star Coleen Nolan has opened up about her mental state following the death of her sister Linda.
The artist, actor and TV star, best known for being one-fifth of the family-formed girl group The Nolans, died in January, aged 65, after contracting pneumonia, having lived with cancer for twenty years.
Following Linda’s death, Nolan took time away from role on ITV’s Loose Women daytime panel show and left the running of her house and small farm to her daughter, Ciara, 24, who lives in her annexe.
Speaking to OK!, Nolan said: “Linda had cancer for 20 years and was so positive. I got to a point where I thought she’d outlive us all. Then when it happened, it happened so quickly. Afterwards, I didn’t want to get out of bed. It was overwhelming.”
Nolan said her children “didn’t leave” her side following Linda’s death. During the times where she “needed to be alone”, they would sit in the next room of her house rather than leaving the property.
“Ciara took control of everything and everyone that came round,” she said. “I’d be asked to do something and say ‘yes’, and she’d jump in and tell them no, I wasn’t ready.”
Linda was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and was given the all-clear in 2011, but in 2017 she was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer. In 2020, it spread and by 2023 was in her brain.
Nolan has since started therapy while grieving for her older sister. “I didn’t know how to push forward and had an incredible sadness, and when it wasn’t sadness it was numbness,” she said.
“Therapy has absolutely saved me,” she affirmed. “My therapist can’t give me a pill or an operation to fix me, it ultimately has to come from me, but it gives me the belief and the courage that I’m strong enough to do it.”
Born the sixth of eight children, Linda’s family have had several experiences with cancer. Her sister Anne, whom she joined on the TV series The Nolans Go Cruising, was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in 2020 and is presently free from the disease.
Their sister Bernie died of breast cancer in 2013 aged 52, while Loose Women host Coleen shared she had been diagnosed with skin cancer last year and was using a chemotherapy cream to cure it.
