Coleen Patricia Nolan (born 12 March 1965) is an Irish-British singer, television personality and author. She was a member of the Irish-English girl group the Nolans, in which she sang with her sisters. With over 30 million records sold worldwide, The Nolans are one of the world's biggest-selling girl groups.
Since 2000, Nolan has been a regular panellist on the ITV talk show Loose Women. From 2001 to 2002, she co-presented the ITV daytime show This Morning, and later returned to the show from 2010 to 2012 as a presenter of the interactive hub segments. In 2009, she competed on the fourth series of the ITV show Dancing on Ice, in which she finished in fourth place. In 2012, Nolan appeared on the tenth series of the Channel 5 reality series Celebrity Big Brother, finishing as runner-up. She returned to Celebrity Big Brother in 2017, winning the nineteenth series.
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Early life
Coleen Patricia Nolan was born 12 March 1965 in Blackpool, England, to Irish parents. She is the youngest of eight children and the only one born in England.
Career
On 5 February 1974, Nolan made her first television appearance with her sisters when she was almost nine years old, as The Nolans appeared on the It's Cliff Richard! television series. With the line-up featuring all six sisters and billed as The Nolan Sisters, they performed "Stuck on You". That same year they released their debut single, "But I Do", with Coleen singing lead vocals. Owing to her age, Coleen would not become a full-time member of the group until 1980, when she was fifteen, although she does appear in the music video to their 1979 hit "I'm in the Mood for Dancing", which reached number three in the UK singles chart. The group had further UK top twenty hits with "Don't Make Waves" (1980), "Gotta Pull Myself Together" (1980), "Who's Gonna Rock You" (1981), "Attention to Me" (1981), "Chemistry" (1981) and "Don't Love Me Too Hard" (1982). In 1981, they won the Tokyo Music Festival with the song "Sexy Music".
On 14 January 1987, Coleen appeared alongside her sisters Anne, Bernie and Maureen in the BBC sitcom Filthy Rich & Catflap. In 1991, the group won a 33rd Japan Record Awards Kikaku-shō (Prize for Planning) for a cover versions of Japanese pop music. Coleen left the group in 1994 to concentrate on raising a family, although she did return briefly in 1995 to promote a re-recorded version of "I'm in the Mood for Dancing".
In 2000, Coleen Nolan became a regular panellist on ITV's Loose Women. She left Loose Women on 28 July 2011, only to return again on 7 October 2013 as a regular panellist. Since July 2014, Nolan has also been a relief anchor of the show.
Nolan presented the programme, The Truth About... Eternal Youth about plastic surgery on ITV in 2009, and presented The Secret Guide To Women's Health in 2010 on Sky Real Lives.
In 2000, Nolan played the part of Janelle Cooper in the short comedy film, Rattler.
Beginning on 11 January 2009, Nolan took part in the fourth series of Dancing on Ice on ITV. Of her appearance on the show Nolan said, "I've never really skated. When I was 14 I used to go to Disco Beat in Blackpool with my friend. We'd skate round once, hanging on to each other, and spend the rest of the night posing, like 14-year-old girls do. I could only go forwards, I couldn't stop!" She was eliminated in week 10, finishing in fourth place. She went on to co-host the spin-off show Dancing on Ice Friday with Ben Shephard in 2010. and on 27 February 2011, she hosted Dancing on Ice, in place of Holly Willoughby who fell ill.
Guest appearances
On 4 March 2002, Nolan was a panellist on BBC panel game show Never Mind the Buzzcocks. On 25 May, she appeared on An Audience with Brian Conley. Later in 2002, she took part in the first series of the reality television programme Celebrity Fit Club, which followed overweight celebrities as they tried to lose weight for charity.
On 7 January 2003, Nolan appeared in the documentary We Are Family, which chronicled the success stories of various musical acts that were made up of family members. In 2002 and 2003, she was a panellist on the chat show The Wright Stuff on Five and guest hosted the show herself in 2013.
On 3 June 2005, Nolan took part in the first series of the ITV daytime programme, Have I Been Here Before? presented by Phillip Schofield, which offered celebrity guests the chance to see if they have lived before, through past life regression. Nolan was said to have been a "nervous 16-year-old debutante".
In September 2006, Nolan returned to Celebrity Fit Club as part of the judging panel in the fourth series. On 6 October she was a guest on The Sharon Osbourne Show and, ten days later, was a guest on the Irish chat show, broadcast and produced by RTÉ, The Podge and Rodge Show.
On 19 September 2008, Nolan appeared on Al Murray's Happy Hour and on 27 September she appeared with her family on the third series of All Star Family Fortunes competing against Barry McGuigan and his family. She has also made guest appearances on Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong (31 October) and The Paul O'Grady Show (18 December), both on Channel 4.
On 13 September 2012, she was a guest panellist on an episode of Celebrity Juice on ITV2.
On 15 February 2013, Nolan stood in for Matthew Wright as host of The Wright Stuff on Channel 5.
Other work
Nolan has a weekly column in Best magazine. She also has an agony aunt column in the Daily Mirror titled Dear Coleen.
In 2007, Nolan featured in television advertisements for the supermarket chain Iceland, along with her sister Bernie and former Loose Women colleague Kerry Katona. She appeared in further commercials for Iceland during the next couple of years. She was also the new face of Park Christmas Savings and appeared in their television advertisements in December 2010.
In early 2008, she released a DVD, A Brand New You, produced with Rosemary Conley.
Nolan made her pantomime debut in 2013, playing the fairy godmother at the Manchester Opera House, and reprised the role in 2017 at the Bradford Alhambra.
Personal life
Nolan married actor Shane Richie in 1990. They had two sons, including Jake Roche, before splitting up in 1997 and divorcing in 1999.
She gave birth to a daughter in 2001 and became engaged to her longtime boyfriend Ray Fensome, a musician from Leeds, when he proposed on her 40th birthday in 2005. They married in November 2007, and divorced in 2018. Nolan said that she and Fensome have been able to remain friends. Nolan moved to Dilhorne in the Staffordshire Moorlands in 2024.
In August 2026, Nolan confirmed she was in a relationship with Ryan Brockbank, a lecturer at the Fashion Retail Academy in London.
Her mother, Maureen, had Alzheimer's disease. In 2006, Coleen Nolan opened the first Alzheimer's Society information centre on The Fylde coast. Maureen died on 30 December 2007.
Health
In July 2023, Nolan announced that she had been diagnosed with basal-cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer.
Controversies
Nolan, has, at various times, made controversial statements and shared opinions which have garnered wider attention.
In 2005, on Loose Women, she said that if her 16-year-old son passed his exams, she would pay for him to go on a sex trip to Amsterdam, and that she had given her fiancé Ray Fensome permission to have a one-night stand during the proposed trip. She gained criticism from her former partner, Shane Richie, who said he was "disgusted and appalled" by her comments about their son, and that he hoped and assumed "it was said in total jest." Nolan defended her comments, saying that she had told her son that she would pay for a long weekend for him anywhere in the world and that he had mentioned how he and his friends had always wanted to go to Amsterdam to see the red light district. She also noted that had he planned to go on a trip to Ibiza, everybody would have thought that was fine, even though he would probably have unprotected sex with numerous girls.
In the News of the World newspaper, Nolan said, "In an ideal world I'd never condone my son sleeping with hookers, but it's a fact of life that boys of his age have casual sex. So if I'm pushed, I'd rather he does it somewhere well-policed and where the girls have health checks than behind the wall of a club in Ibiza with absolutely no safeguards." In relation to her giving Fensome permission to have a one-night stand, she said: "In all honesty, I couldn't care less [if he does]. What bothers me more is the thought of Ray going into a bar, chatting up a really stunning girl, having sex with her, spending the night and waking up with her the next morning. I couldn't cope with that."
In January 2007, during a debate on Loose Women about same-sex adoption, Nolan said that gay people should not be allowed to adopt children, followed by her opinion that "there's only so much I want to accept".
In May 2015, she compared gay rights with supporting ISIS, and said that bakery owners should be permitted to discriminate against same-sex couples who wish to buy a wedding cake. Her comments were made on Loose Women after a Belfast bakery company was sued for refusing to bake a cake in support of same-sex marriage. Following the show, some viewers took to Twitter and called for ITV to dismiss Nolan for making the comments.