Linda Nolan has said she and her family have been supporting sister Coleen during her divorce from second husband Ray Fensome.
Celebrity Big Brother 2017 winner Coleen revealed she was splitting from Fensome on Loose Women earlier this year, a decision she said was partly inspired by Linda being diagnosed with cancer and the death of their sister Bernie in 2013.
Linda, 59, told the Press Association: “It’s funny how those big events in your life make you think, ‘What am I doing? Am I making the most of what I’ve got?’ And sometimes there are hard decisions to make.
“In a way, that’s a good thing. When Bernie got cancer we didn’t know how long we would have with her.
“Initially she was OK. She was rediagnosed and doing her treatment, then all of a sudden that massive part of your life is taken away from you.
“I suppose, that for the girls, when I got the same diagnosis – that it’s treatable but not curable – it was so frightening. But my cancer is different.
“But I’m glad that it makes people stand up and go, ‘Oh, what’s important in my life now?’.”
Linda, who lives in Blackpool, has seen Coleen once since the Loose Women presenter announced that she and Fensome were divorcing.
“We’d all known that it wasn’t right for a while and she sent out a generic text to the family initially. Then we phoned her.
“She wants it to be amicable – and so does he – and that’s great,” she said.
“It’s really sad when a marriage comes to an end. We are obviously there for her.
“She’s quite private about her feelings when you see her on Loose Women. We watch it from behind the cushion sometimes, thinking, ‘What’s she going to say about us?’
“But she’s quite private. We are all here for her and we’ve spoken about it. These things happen.
“It’s nobody’s fault and it’s come to an end and it was great while it lasted for her.”
Linda Nolan’s memoir From My Heart (Sidgwick & Jackson) is published on March 8.