Today on Loose Women, Kaye Adams, Linda Robson, Myleene Klass and Nadia Sawalha shared the advice they would give to their teenage selves after being inspired by Donny Osmond’s Las Vegas residency, where he will be performing a duet with a 14-year-old hologram version of himself.
Throwback photos were shown of the panelists as Kaye asked what they would all ask their younger selves, jokingly saying: “I think I would ask myself, ‘Do you really need another toffee crisp?’”
When asked what she would say to younger self, Linda said: “If I asked myself a question, I would say, ‘Never say no, but try everything once.’”
Myleene said: “They say you become the adult you needed as a child and I think there is a lot of truth in that because I throw so much information at my children because I didn’t know anything. No one would tell me the answers to anything that was slightly salacious or controversial.”
Myleene continued: "I didn't know about sex, didn’t know about drugs, I was always having to go down to the library and try and find the book, but didn’t know where to find it.”
“I would say, ask me anything and listen to your gut… When you get older and you start to just sort of push that voice down. It turns out that it's trying to look after you.”
Nadia responded: “I would ask myself more, ‘How are you actually feeling?’ Because I didn't stop and think about how I was feeling. I was just running and doing, and just everything was impulse. Some of that worked well, and some of it certainly did not.”
Nadia continued: “Now with my girls [daughters], I really do ask them and I really want to hear, then they really tell me.”
Earlier in the show, Kelsey Parker joined the panel for an exclusive interview, in which she discussed her recently announced pregnancy with her partner Will and why she will make sure that the baby will be as close to her late-husband Tom Parker’s family as the rest of her children.
Kelsey described her other children’s responses to being told they would be getting another sibling: “They were over the moon. [My daughter] was just like, ‘Are you lying to me mummy? You're actually having a baby?! And then she was jumping on the sofa like, ‘All my wishes have come true!”
She revealed they haven’t yet found out the gender: “We have actually got an email with the results but we've not opened it. Everyone can't believe I've not opened this email. Do you know what, I just want to enjoy this.”
Discussing how involved Tom’s family still are in her, and hers and Tom’s children’s lives, Kelsey said: “We FaceTime every weekend, every Sunday I'm on the phone to Noreen [Tom’s mum], trying to get the kids to sit there and FaceTime. In the end, it’s me and Noreen catching up.”
Kelsey continued: “Noreen’s just happy for me, she messaged me the other day like, ‘Are we going to find out what you have?’ and I was like, ‘I still don't know!’. She said, as long as you and the baby are healthy and happy, that's all that matters.”
She also opened up on how her boyfriend Will has taken the news that they’re expecting: “I feel like he skipped the stage, he's had to come in and have the four or five year old - and now he's gonna have a newborn.
“He’s just fantastic. He's the most laid back person who doesn't overthink anything. So, he's perfect for me.”
She revealed how they met and said: “I just met him out authentically because I was so scared to go on dating apps. I met Tom when I was 19 so life has changed so much and I was so scared. I was like, ‘I just want to meet someone authentically’ - the old fashioned way. I was just so scared to go on a date with someone.”
Kelsey calls her partner Will her ‘twin flame’ and described what that meant to her: “It’s just your soul mate, you can have plenty of soul mates and obviously, Tom was my soul mate, and I miss him every single day, and the kids miss him. I feel like Will now misses him and he's never even met him! So, I'm just trying to find the joys in life because it has been so hard to get to this point.”
Discussing her other two children, she said: “They deserve happiness because so much has been taken away from them and I just want them to be happy. They are over the moon that they're going to have a brother or sister. So, we just are taking every moment and lapping it up, because life has been so tough for us.
Before the end of the interview, Kelsey said: “One minute you're pregnant, you've got the 15 month old baby, you’re expecting another one, and then your husband gets diagnosed with a brain tumor, the worst type of brain tumor, and then I lose him 18 months later. I went through everything, I went through hell and back and now I'm just trying to take the joys in life.”
Opening up about Tom and grief, she added: “First of all, there is no wrong or right way to grieve, you are going to do it at your own time, your own pace. We talk about Tom every day, we do, every single day. The kids will do something [and it’ll be like] ‘Oh, you're just like your dad’ or ‘What would your dad say about that?’.
“We talk about him all the time. His memory is alive, and that's what I want because I feel like [the children] have missed out on Tom, especially Bodhi, with him being 18 months he doesn't know Tom. So, I want him to know the Tom that I loved. I just want to tell people that there is no wrong or right way to grieve, and you have to do what's right for you and your family.”
Written by TomSouthwell on Feb 7, 2025