ITV Loose Women takes awkward turn minutes into show as host asks 'are we fighting already?'

Loose Women turned awkward just minutes into Friday's show as Kaye Adams asked why her co-stars were fighting.

As the episode opened on Friday, Kaye, 61, said: "What, are we fighting already girls?" to which co-star Frankie Bridge replied pointing at Linda Robson: "She's doing things behind my back!" which prompted an "ooh" reaction from the studio.

Linda, 66, quickly blamed the situation on someone else, believed to be one of the show producers, replying: "Mattie told me to pull faces behind her back, thanks Mattie!" with Kaye, 61, quickly moving things along as she announced: "Welcome to Loose Women everyone! It's Friday!"

The show went on to welcome a number of guests including comedian Leigh Francis, aka, Keith Lemon, who was talking about his new autobiography book Leigh, Myself and I - and order seemed to have been maintained among the panel.

It comes as fellow Loose Women star Denise Welch took a savage swipe at her co-stars after an on-air disagreement with Stacey Solomon during a fiery debate.

The women had different views during a debate on the ITV daytime talk show in June, and while Denise dismissed rumours of a feud, she hinted at tensions during a chat on Olivia Attwood ’s podcast So Wrong It’s Right.

The 66-year-old explained: “I’m always happy to have new blood on (Loose Women) because we do get bored of each other.

"But I’ve always been sceptical when younger people come in because, sometimes, they may have a great life story but they are either not prepared to talk about it yet, or are too worried about what the public are going to say."

She then lifted the lid on the behind-the-scenes tension, and added: "So they’ll be in a meeting saying 'I’m not going to talk about that,’ and it’s kind of like, ‘what are you gonna talk about then?'"

Stacey joined the show in 2016, and is one of the youngest members of the panel, along with Katie Piper, Frankie Bridge, Olivia Attwood and GK Barry, and Denise’s comments come after an awkward disagreement with Stacey earlier this year on the show.

During the debate in June, Stacey, 35, defended people working flexible hours from home after the pandemic, but she clashed with Denise, who believed that the country was "grinding to a halt" as the staff had "disappeared".

Unimpressed, Stacey replied: "They don't disappear because they're working from home," but Denise was insistent, and asked: "But, where are they Stace?"

The mum-of-five went on to explain that she thinks the pandemic proved a lot of the UK’s workforce could do an "adequate if not better job" from home, but Denise disagreed, and viewers were left uncomfortable with the tension between the two women.

The following month, former actress Denise explained the 'fallout', and said it had been blown out of proportion. "We disagreed on something, it was about young people and work ethic and since Covid, have Gen-Z become a bit more lazy and entitled, it was one of those kind of Loose Women things," she began.

"Stacey said something about nurses and the NHS which provoked a great big reaction, and I actually agreed with her," Denise added.

Denise also claimed to have had only a handful of disagreements with her fellow panellists during her 25 years on the show, and hinted that she doesn’t get along with some of the other hosts.

"In 25 years, there have obviously been a couple of people who aren’t as close as some of the others. Like in any show, there are some people you prefer, there are some panels I prefer to others. Just because of the dynamics of personalities," she cryptically explained on an US podcast earlier this year.

Loose Women continues on weekdays at 12:30pm on both ITV and ITV X.

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