Linda Robson's pal gives update on Loose Women star after tough marriage split

05 December 2023 , 18:23

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Linda Robson's pal gives update on Loose Women star after tough marriage split

Linda Robson's close friend has given an update on the Loose Women star's wellbeing following her split from Mark Dunford.

The ITV panellist announced the end of her 33-year-long marriage to the window cleaner in November, after previously denying reports that their relationship had been in trouble. It remains unknown why exactly Linda split from Mark, but she recently suggested that tensions had been building after admitting 'enough is enough.' The 65-year-old has now been leaning on her old friend Lesley Joseph, 78, whom she has known for decades. The two BBFs famously starred on Birds Of A Feather alongside Pauline Quirke in the 80s, and have remained chummy ever since.

"She's fine, she's in great shape. I see quite a lot of her and she's a great mate and a great character," Lesley assured Bella magazine in a new interview. Despite Linda mentioning that she and Lesley were planning a cruise together this year, Lesley denied any knowledge of such a trip. Both Lesley and Linda starred on Birds Of A Feather in the 80s alongside Pauline Quirke, which was revived in 2013.

Lesley and Linda have been best friends alongside with Pauline for years (Lesley Joseph/Instagram)

Linda and Mark have split after 33 years of marriage (Dave Benett/Getty Images)

Linda hit headlines last month with the news of her split from Mark, with whom she shares son, Louis, 31, and daughter Roberta, 27. "He's really good dad and we had some good years, but enough is enough. I've got my family and my kids around me. I'm keeping busy. I feel fine. I'm just going away on trips all the time," she told Woman magazine. Linda also has another daughter, Lauren, 40, from her previous relationship with Tony Tyler.

Speaking about her relationship with Mark in 2017, the former child star shocked her Loose Women co-hosts with the confession that she used to babysit him as a teenager. "He was a couple of years younger than me," she said. "He was just two and a half years younger than me! I was 16 and he was 13 and a half, and he was a bit of a pain in the butt, to be honest. And we lived in the street next to each other."

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Linda bumped into Mark again in a park several years later, after she'd had her first child, Lauren. "Lauren said “Can you give us a lift home?" she recalled. And then he gives us a lift home and then he asked me out on a date. So that was fate that day because I’d known him all my life and I’d never seen him in that way before."

The former Hollyoaks star also said she and Mark had almost separated after their marriage was tested by their children's poor health and the death of Linda's mother. "We’ve had a few tough years when we could have easily called it a day, but we didn’t," she told the Sunday Mirror in 2017, after insisting, "I love him."

Emma Dooney