‘It was the coming home, and the emptiness’

TV star Ruth Langsford made a heartbreaking admission on today’s Loose Women (September 8) as she shared how empty nest syndrome affected her when her son Jack left home.

The former This Morning presenter, who recently teased a potential comeback to the show, is in the midst of a messy divorce from Jack’s father, Eamonn Holmes.

The pair got married in 2010. However, last year, they announced they had split. Eamonn, 65, has since moved on with girlfriend Katie Alexander, 43.

Ruth gets candid about son Jack leaving home


Ruth and her husband, Eamonn Holmes, split in 2024 (Credit: Splashnews.com)
During Monday’s episode of Loose Women, the panellists were describing their experiences after a heartbroken mother, faced with her children going to university for the first time, went TikTok-viral.

During the segment, Ruth Langsford admitted she “didn’t think” she would find her son leaving as emotional as it was.

“I thought, you know, I’ve got a busy life and da da da, and you know what it was, it was more, I was very excited for Jack going to uni,” she said.

“I always showed my excitement, so helping him get all his stuff and actually get this duvet… and inside going [mimics crying], but going, ‘Isn’t this exciting? Gosh, I wish I’d gone to university, blah, blah, blah’.”

‘You don’t know what they’re doing’

The 65-year-old continued: “It was the coming home, and the emptiness, and it was actually, it’s not that Jack spent loads of time with me, they don’t, you just come in and go… gone.”

“But it’s that you physically lay eyes on them every day, and suddenly they’re away, you don’t know what they’re doing, how they are.”

As the discussion continued, fellow panellist Coleen Nolan chimed in with some of her own thoughts.

Coleen shares Ruth’s grief


Coleen shared Ruth’s pain. (Image: Splash News)
“I’d spent years being somebody’s everything,” she explained.

“And now I felt no one needed me. And I felt even Mother Nature was going, ‘That’s enough now, dear. Off you pop.’”

“But genuinely, it really, really, and I think if I hadn’t have had, a, my kids to talk to about it, but also my family and friends, I really would have felt, I really think I would have got really, suffered really badly with depression because, I don’t know, I just felt so redundant to everyone,” she revealed.