Denise Van Outen has spoken out about her row with Johnny Vaughan, revealing the pair’s huge falling out was about MONEY.
Denise and Johnny hosted The Big Breakfast together way back in 1997, and their great chemistry and friendship saw the show attract millions of viewers and turned the pair into big stars.
So it was a big shock when she quit the show and it was discovered that the pair weren’t speaking.
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Denise, 43, had kept quiet about her bitter fall-out with DJ Johnny for years, but talked about it today on her debut appearance as a Loose Woman.
The panel were discussing if you should ever work with friends, when Denise made the revealing confessions.
“I had a big fallout with Johnny Vaughan when we worked on The Big Breakfast,” she said.
“I thought we were a team, we created the show together. There were other things involved, agents and stuff.
“The whole relationship fell apart when we renegotiated our contracts. Johnny was negotiating separately and I found out.
“For me it was tarnished. I knew our relationship would never be the same. That’s why I left the show.
“Obviously I gave it another go, but the same thing happened again.”
As the other panellists asked her questions, Denise confirmed the row was about money.
“It was mainly to do with pay and a few other things. I think the view was that I had money coming in from acting on the side.”
As relations between the pair soured, Denise left the show to focus on her acting career. She returned in 2000, when they were reunited to try and improve dwindling audience figures, but their relationship was not the same.
The next time they worked together was in 2008 on the radio, as co-hosts of Capital FM’s Breakfast Show. But things went disastrously wrong and Denise quit after just six months in the role.
And in an interview with the Telegraph in 2015, the actress and presenter admitted she had not spoken to Johnny since their tumultuous radio reunion.
In another interview with the Mail, Denise revealed that Johnny refused to acknowledge on air that they were joint presenters.
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He also controlled and limited when she was allowed to speak, and would fade her microphone down without her permission.
But talking to the Loose Women today, Denise insisted she was now on good terms with Johnny and the pair had patched things up. However, she also said their relationship has been forever changed.
“I loved him so much and I still do,” she said.
“When I see him now, he makes me laugh so much, I forget about it. But I don’t know if it would ever be the same…”