Nadia Sawalha became emotional as she discussed her “volatile” relationship with her sister and losing her first husband.
Nadia opened up about her life as part of Loose Women‘s new segment, Life Before Loose, where the show will “dig deep” into the lives of those who have been part of the programme for a while to mark 20 years of it being on air.
On Monday’s show, Nadia was first asked about her relationship with her sisters.
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Nadia said: “Well, me and my eldest sister Dina were very, very close growing up and then my mum got pregnant with Julia.
“She then had her and I was the classic sibling, wanting to stick bottles in her mouth and wanting to look after her.
“My mum freaked out and sent me away to my grandmother’s. I think because of that, my younger sister and I have always had a really stormy relationship.”
Nadia added: “She’s totally amazing,” as she began to tear up.
She admitted: “That took me by surprise.”
Composing herself, Nadia continued: “We’ve always had a really volatile relationship.
“We’ve always had periods of time in our lives where we don’t speak. I always say I have the worst time or the best time of my life with her .
“It’s the same with both of my sisters. [My dad] came with 50 quid in his pocket and he came here because he wanted to have six daughters that could be free.
“He said he wanted strong, independent, professional women that follow their dreams.
“She’s totally amazing my younger sister, but we’ve always had a really volatile relationship.” @nadiasawalha talks about her relationship with Julia. pic.twitter.com/ksCeAF9XDq
— Loose Women (@loosewomen) August 19, 2019
“And what he got was three really independent and difficult women and because of that, we have a very intense, on and off relationship.”
During the discussion, Nadia also spoke about losing her first husband Justin Mildwater, who took his own life in 1997.
Tearing up, Nadia told her co-stars: “I had a real tragedy while I was [at EastEnders], my first husband died and it was a truly, truly awful time for everybody. I had to carry on working, I was in the middle of a very big storyline.
“That was really hard because when somebody dies, so many people have an idea of how you should behave.
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“One of the first calls I got was from Wendy Richard. She said ‘I can have a car there straight away, you can come to the flat, you can stay as long as you like’. I’ve never forgotten that.
“I didn’t take her up because I was really scared of her, but it was such a lovely thing to do it really was.”
As Kaye Adams asked her further questions about her acting career, Nadia admitted: “Sorry, I’m a bit thrown by talking about that,” referring to her ex-husband’s death.
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