Lights, Camera, Action with Andrea McLean
For 24 years, including 13 years on Loose Women, Andrea became a much-loved and instantly recognisable face on daytime TV. Now a multiple Sunday Times bestselling author and motivational speaker, she’s proof that resilience and authenticity are the keys to lasting success. In this exclusive interview, Brand You finds out how Andrea navigated the challenges of being in the public eye and what it takes to stay authentic when the world is watching. Here’s what she told us.
“Success isn’t defined by perfection but how you rise after every fall. It’s not about avoiding the storms, but about learning to dance in the rain.”
Andrea never set out to work in television. In fact, she never even considered it. Writing was her passion. Her first love. The thing she had dreamed of doing since she was 10 years old, crafting short stories for her younger sister – it was a pastime that ignited a love for journalism.
Born in Scotland and raised in Trinidad in the Caribbean, Andrea moved to England, finished her education and backpacked around the world, ending up in London with everything she owned on the back seat of her old car, and knowing just one person in the city. She slept on a friend’s floor until she could afford a tiny bedsit and worked for free to build her experience, before landing a role as a features writer. But when she was promoted to production editor, a managerial role far from the writing she loved, she quickly realised that it wasn’t her calling. “I hated it,” she admits. “That was not my skill set at all.”
Desperate to get back to writing, and by pure accident, she stumbled into television. “I misread a job advert,” she recalls with a laugh. “I was 25, applying for anything that would get me out of the job I was doing. So, I sent in my details. Then this woman called me up (very dismissive) and said, ‘I’ve been told to ring you, but you haven’t even got a showreel.’ And I just said, ‘What’s a showreel?’”
As it turned out, Andrea had accidentally applied to be a weather presenter. “I thought it was hilarious,” she says. “By sheer coincidence, the audition was on my day off, a Wednesday. I figured, why not go? It would make a great story.”
What happened next is something many can relate to: going into an opportunity with zero expectations, only to succeed. “It happens in jobs, in relationships, in every part of life,” she muses. “When you’re so calm because you don’t really want it, you perform better. Every job I’ve been desperate for, where they could almost smell it on me, I’ve never got. But the ones I was laid back about? Those are the ones I’ve always landed.”
Despite having no television experience, Andrea’s journalism background turned out to be the perfect foundation for her new role. “They sat us in a briefing room and a meteorologist gave us a long, detailed explanation of the weather,” she explains. “We had to cut it down to a minute, then present it on camera. I’d learned shorthand in journalism school, so I could write quickly. Then I thought, OK, what’s the story here? What are the key points people need to know?”
That mindset, she believes, is a lesson for anyone doubting their ability to try something new. “We all build up these micro-skills without realising it,” she says. “It’s a metaphor for anyone making a life change. You think you’re not suitable when in fact, you have all these transferable skills.”
The next test was to simply talk to the camera for a minute about anything. It was meant to gauge confidence and natural delivery. “Because I wasn’t bothered about getting the job, I just looked straight into the camera and spoke. “Hi, I’m Andrea McLean. This is one of the funniest days of my life because I shouldn’t be here. I’m actually a journalist. I got a bizarre phone call asking if I’d like to audition to be a weather presenter. It’s never been on my radar, but today’s my day off, so I thought, why not?” Everyone laughed. The producers were hooked.
Then came the actual weather report. “I just treated it like any other story,” she explains. “A beginning, a middle and an end. Make it interesting, make it clear.” By the end of the day, she was the only one offered the job. “It was demoralising for the people who really wanted it,” she admits. “But for me, it was just an enjoyable experience.”
Her journey into television might not have been planned, but once Andrea found herself in the industry, she embraced every challenge that came her way. From her accidental start as a weather presenter to becoming one of the original anchors of Loose Women, Andrea has seen the television industry evolve – both in opportunities and challenges – particularly for women.
“I’ve never really thought about whether people liked me or not, or whether I was bringing in viewers. I just concentrated on being myself, and I think that’s what helped me last so long.”
Reflecting on her early days, it was a time of creative freedom and spontaneity that Andrea believes is missing in today’s television landscape. “There was a magic about television in the nineties,” she recalls. “No social media, no mobile phones and the internet was just getting started. It meant we could take risks, throw ideas at the wall and see what worked.”
Working at GMTV, Andrea found herself in an environment where she could experiment and develop her skills beyond the role she was initially hired for. She credits an early mentor – an old-school former newspaper editor turned Director Of Programmes, who, while tough, was fair with giving her a crucial chance. “I told him I wanted to do more than just present the weather, that I was good at interviewing people and drawing out their stories because I genuinely cared. And to his credit, he let me prove myself.”
She ended up splitting her time between weather presenting and feature reporting, giving her a chance to apply her journalistic background in a new way. “I wasn’t brilliant at first,” she admits, “but I was allowed to keep trying. Back then, channel heads trusted their instincts and weren’t just pulling the plug after the first hiccup. They’d give people more time to get their footing.”
The ‘Scrappy-Doo’ spirit of her team also allowed for trying out new things and global adventures. She travelled the world, filming holiday pieces, competitions and live reports from iconic locations like the Sydney Opera House. “Budgets were different then,” she says with a laugh. “If we needed to film in Australia, we went to Australia!”
While Andrea remembers the nineties as an exciting time, she doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the challenges women faced in the industry.
“Of course, there was misogyny and sexism, absolutely,” she says. “But here’s the thing, by the time I hit mainstream television aged 27, I’d been backpacking and doing all sorts of random work and temp jobs in bars and offices. Trust me, I had seen it all before. Our expectations of what’s acceptable have changed, but human nature hasn’t. You’ll always have to deal with difficult people, no matter where you work. The key is knowing how to handle those situations without letting them define you.”
For Andrea, navigating these obstacles came down to self-belief and knowing how to set boundaries. “I’ve been told I was too young, then too middle-of-the-road and now I’m too old! If you let that kind of thing get to you, you’ll never get anywhere.”
When asked if the pressure of ratings ever affected her, she replies with a shrug. “If you’re trying to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody.” From the very start of her broadcasting career, Andrea focused on one thing: doing a good job and staying true to herself. “I never really thought about whether people liked me or not, or whether I was bringing in viewers. I just concentrated on being myself, and I think that’s what helped me last so long.”
Nowhere was that more evident than during her time hosting Loose Women, a show that required her to juggle multiple demands in real-time. “I’d done presenting before, sure,” she says, “but when you’re the anchor of a live panel show, in front of a studio audience and millions at home, it’s a whole different beast.”
The pace was relentless. “People think everything is rehearsed. It’s not. We have a morning meeting to discuss topics but then it’s straight into the show. No run-through, no safety net.”
“I’ve been told I was too young, then too middle-of-the-road and now I’m too old!”
And the pressure? Imagine this: “You’ve got two minutes before going live. The warm-up guy is getting the audience hyped so they’re cheering and clapping. In my earpiece, the editor is changing the running order: ‘This guest is late, swap that around! Breaking news, drop that segment!’ – all while I’m nodding, taking it in, adjusting on the fly. The panellists are buzzing around me, and then, boom! You walk out, and it’s showtime.”
Things go wrong, constantly. “Live links fail. Guests don’t turn up. Sometimes, in the corner of your eye, you see paramedics carrying someone out of the audience mid-show. And you just have to keep going.”
So, how do you handle that kind of pressure? Andrea has a unique analogy: “It’s like being a Formula One driver with a baby asleep in the back of the car. Your job is to race around the track as fast as possible, cutting corners, making split-second decisions, but so smoothly that the baby never wakes up.”
For her, the key is focus. “If I let myself worry about whether people like me, how I look or if I said the ‘right’ thing, I’d never get anything done. In the moment, you have to shut out the noise and just do your job.”
When people ask Andrea about her most memorable interview, the answer is always the same – Oprah Winfrey. “It was a huge deal,” she recalls. “One of Oprah’s rare UK visits, and I was chosen to do the interview. That was an honour; it meant I was trusted as a safe pair of hands. But I was terrified! I didn’t sleep the night before. I can hardly bear to watch it back – my voice is higher and my nerves are obvious. But Oprah was incredible, completely professional, and the interview itself went smoothly. It was my best and worst interview at the same time.”
Then there were the MPs, her least favourite interviews. “It’s a dance of give and take. But MPs don’t play fair. They talk endlessly, knowing time will run out, forcing you to either interrupt and look bad or let them ramble on. I learned not to fight fire with fire but to use quiet strength.”
That lesson came from the headmistress of a school she once visited to do a speech. “She walked onto a noisy stage, stood still and simply stared at everyone. They fell silent. Then she smiled and said, ‘Thank you.’ It was powerful. I use that in interviews, in meetings and with tough crowds. You don’t have to match noise with noise. Sometimes, stillness and directness command the most respect.”
“During all this time, I never stopped writing,” she says. “It’s just part of who I am.” Even as she continued her day job, she was making a name for herself as an author. Her first book became a Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller in 2012. Confessions of a Good Girl was her life story because, as she puts it, “I’ve had a really interesting life, and at the time, there was an appetite for it.” But one book wasn’t enough. Writing became a way for her to take her own experiences – both the struggles and the triumphs – and use them to help others.
“You can’t just write a textbook and expect people to relate,” she explains. “You have to build a bridge, show them they’re not alone and then give them the tools to make a change.”
That philosophy shaped her 2017 book, Confessions of a Menopausal Woman, inspired by her full hysterectomy and the shock of suddenly being in surgical menopause. “No one was talking about it, and I thought, ‘How are women supposed to get the information they need?’” So, she teamed up with a doctor to weave medical expertise into her personal journey.
By now, Andrea had spent nearly two decades in television, becoming a household name. But in the middle of the pandemic, she made a bold, life-changing decision. She quit the show to go all-in on a passion project. “I just thought, if we’re all going to die, I want to die doing something I love and making a difference,” she says, reflecting on the fear and uncertainty of the time.
“I never stopped writing, it’s just part of who I am.”
Born out of the response to her previous book, Andrea decided to create an online community for women not only going through the menopause, but also wanting to ‘relight their fire’. Her platform, This Girl Is On Fire, started as a simple blog, growing organically into an online magazine read by tens of thousands of women worldwide. But Andrea had a bigger vision. She wanted to create a space where women could access tools to gain emotional and financial freedom. “When you’re emotionally strong, you make better decisions. And when you make better decisions, you can create financial freedom. That gives you choices,” she explains.
It was deeply personal for her. After leaving an abusive relationship, Andrea realised she had been fortunate – she was financially secure and emotionally resilient. “I had the means to make choices but so many women don’t. I wanted to change that.”
So she and her husband, Nick, threw everything into the business. They built a community membership, started coaching masterclasses and even developed an app. There were grand plans to create an online marketplace for female entrepreneurs. But the reality was brutal. Covid supply chain issues meant businesses couldn’t get their products in. The app launch was delayed by a year and cost far more than expected. And then Andrea got Covid – three times – and that turned into Long Covid, leaving her too ill to work. Everything bottlenecked.
“We tried to keep it going and I worked from my bed. But in the end, we had to shut it down.” The business failed. They had personally funded everything, even selling their house. “We ended up in massive debt. It was a complete failure. And I think it’s really important to talk about that.”
Because here’s the thing – entrepreneurs only seem to talk about success. “You hear things like, ‘Most entrepreneurs fail three times before they succeed’, as if that’s just a rite of passage,” Andrea says. “That’s ridiculous. No one talks about the absolute devastation when things don’t work out.”
For female entrepreneurs, the odds are even tougher. Only 3% of funding goes to women-led businesses. Many start as passion projects, bootstrapped with personal savings. “People assume, ‘Oh, it’s OK for her because she’s famous.’ No. The pain is the same. The debt is the same. The hurt is the same. The only difference is that when you fail in public, the shame is amplified.”
But shame is exactly what Andrea refuses to accept and she’s tackling the topic in her upcoming book, set for release in the spring. “I tried something. It didn’t work. Why should I be ashamed of that?” She wants other women to know they’re not alone. “So many people look around and think, ‘How is everyone else making it work?’ But the truth is, there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. Social media makes it look shiny but starting a business is hard. Failing is hard. And we need to talk about that.”
Sitting amongst the rubble of what was once her business, Andrea knew she had to act fast. Bills needed paying, and life had to go on. “I was still very poorly at the time, but I asked myself, what am I good at?” she recalls.
Combining her two core skills, she launched a media coaching business, helping female entrepreneurs build confidence on camera. “It was a knee-jerk reaction to survival,” she admits. “But I made it work.” Until two years later, life threw another challenge her way when she was hospitalised in December 2024 with severe pneumonia, sepsis and kidney failure. “It was terrifying. And it forced me to stop and reevaluate: what do I truly love?”
“Every challenge, every setback and every public misstep has shaped me into the person I am today.”
The answer was writing. She was letting herself be distracted, so she made the call and closed the Media Coach. “The minute I decided, it was like I breathed out.”
Now, she’s all in. She’s launched a Substack, giving herself a weekly deadline to write a column, something she thrives on. “And funnily enough, at 55, I’ve somehow become a social media influencer!” she laughs. “But I work with brands I believe in, and I love that flexibility.”
“I’ve been divorced twice…once is bad, twice is terrible. I’ve launched a business that failed. But you can always get back up. Always. “Would I have spent another decade doing something that wasn’t my ultimate passion?” she wonders. “The fact that it failed pushed me back to what I truly love.”
“We assume we’ll always have that startup energy. We won’t. It’s like a new relationship: hot and exciting at first, but it changes. Business does too. If you’re running at a sprint pace in a marathon, you won’t last. Burnout is real, but don’t wallow in it,” she advises. “Feel it. Rest. And then get up. If you find yourself lost, remember, you can always start again.”
Andrea reflects on her years in the public eye as a journey of growth, learning and resilience. “It hasn’t always been easy,” she admits. “But every challenge, every setback and every public misstep has shaped me into the person I am today.” Through it all, she’s learned the value of vulnerability, the power of owning her story and the importance of staying authentic.
“Success isn’t defined by perfection but by how you rise after every fall. It’s not about avoiding the storms, but about learning to dance in the rain.”
INTERVIEW BY OLIVIA MAROCCO – EDITOR-IN-CHIEF – BRAND YOU MAGAZINE
Article published in Brand You Magazine – Edition 36
Andrea McLean
Andrea is a seasoned broadcaster, journalist, public speaker and best-selling author known for her warmth and authenticity. Starting in print journalism, she became a familiar face on British TV, hosting shows like GMTV and Loose Women.
