Denise Welch Quits Set After ‘Patronising’ Comment from Director

Denise Welch has recalled the time she stormed off set after a furious stand-off with a director.

The Loose Women presenter, 67, revealed she has only stormed off set twice in her life, but made the decision after feeling patronised. 

Appearing in the latest episode of Loose Women’s Just Between Us podcast with co-star GK Barry, 26, Denise said the dramatic moment took the cast and crew by surprise as she ‘isn’t a diva’. 

Denise said: ‘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”.’

Venting her fury, Denise went on: ‘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”.

‘That patronising is very different to having a little bit of banter. Do you know what I mean?”.

Denise revealed it spread like wildfire amongst the crew that she had ‘stormed off set’, but said: ‘I never regretted it. 

‘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.’

Grace asked if Denise’s boss apologised, but it was half hearted. 

She said: ‘The people that I wanted to had seen it [did] on the monitors, so they they knew which way that went.’ 

The pair were answering a dilemma from a fan who had written in to ask how to handle a difficult boss without HR support, with Denise recommending to go to Citizens Advice. 

It was recently announced that Loose Women would no longer be running for 52 weeks of the year and instead be on screen for just 30 in a bid to cut costs.

Changing viewing habits, including an increased reliance on streaming services, have forced ITV to make some difficult decisions in a bid to remain profitable and keep some of the UK’s most beloved shows on air. 

Other shows that have been affected by cuts at the broadcaster include Good Morning Britain and Lorraine.

Good Morning Britain will now run for an extra half an hour to reduce Lorraine’s slot from one hour to 30 minutes. 

Like Loose Women, Lorraine will now air for just 30 weeks a year, and when it is not on, it will be replaced by an even longer edition of Good Morning Britain, which will run from 6am to 10am. 

Kevin Lygo, Managing Director of ITV‘s Media and Entertainment Division, stressed that ‘daytime is a really important part of what we do.’ 

The Managing Director continued: ‘These scheduling and production changes will enable us to continue to deliver a schedule providing viewers with the news, debate and discussion they love from the presenters they know and trust as well as generating savings which will allow us to reinvest across the programme budget in other genres.

‘These changes also allow us to consolidate our news operations and expand our national, international and regional news output and to build upon our proud history of trusted journalism at a time when our viewers need accurate, unbiased news coverage more than ever.’