Coleen Nolan was fighting back the tears as she returned to Loose Women for the first time since the death of her sister Linda.
Linda Nolan tragically passed away aged 65 from pneumonia on January 15, after her long struggle with secondary breast cancer.
Diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2005, Linda achieved remission a year later. However, by 2017, she devastatingly revealed that she was fighting a secondary form of the disease, which had taken hold in her hip and by 2020, had further spread to her liver.
She was laid to rest on Saturday (February 1) at St Paul’s Church, in Blackpool.
During Loose Women, Christine Lampard asked Coleen how she and the family were doing during this difficult time. Coleen replied: “It’s difficult to say, isn’t it? It’s so soon.
“We’re all doing great, but you know, you have great moments, and then you have absolute meltdown moments, and they come out the blue. So there’s no rhyme or reason.”
Coleen went on to thank viewers for the love and support the family have received, including the massive public turnout for the funeral, flowers, cards and gifts sent to them.
“It’s just hard, because there was a time where I thought… wait a minute,” she stated, before stopping to hold in her tears.
“I thought, Do I go back? Is it too soon? And then you have to, because life goes on,” she explained.
“Linda’s had this for 20 years, and I think the one thing she would want to say is, is that she wouldn’t want anybody that’s still going through this horrendous disease to go, ‘oh, well, I may as well give up, because it got her in the end’.”
“Because, actually, it wasn’t that that got her in the end, she got the flu and pneumonia, which actually was, you know, what she went from. She was a massive force in our family, and it feels like such a hole,” she added.
Coleen continued to say it’s hard for her to accept that there is “only six siblings” left.
Join theDaily Record’s WhatsApp community hereand get the latest news sent straight to your messages.
Linda was laid to rest in a glittering pink coffin, at her request, in the church where she married her late husband Brain Hudson. The couple were married for 26 years before Brian’s death in 2007.
Coleen’s son Shane Nolan was one of the pallbearers, and sister Denise spoke out at the funeral. She stated that Linda was a strong woman, and that the cancer diagnosis, along with losing Brian and sister Bernie, could have “destroyed” a lesser person.
Denise said: “Not Linda, instead she chose to help raise millions for cancer research” before she went on to say that her sister had showed “courage in the face of adversity”.
Ending her heartbreaking eulogy, Denise spoke directly to Linda, saying: “It’s time to rest now Linda. The battle is over. You are free.”
Get the latest celebrity gossip and telly news sent straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily Showbiz newsletterhere.