Carol McGiffin took to Instagram this weekend to celebrate a special occasion by sharing an adorable photo.
The former Loose Women star, 63, sat in a gondola with her toyboy husband Mark Cassidy, 42, as they celebrated his birthday in Venice.
Carol was wrapped warmly in a glamorous beige fluffy coat, while Mark was pictured wearing a quilted jacket and checked scarf.
She captioned her upload: ‘After coming to Venice for over twenty years, finally got on a gondola. But it was Mark’s birthday, and he’s 42, so… it was worth it.
‘Leonardo refused to sing, but it was still a great, albeit the most expensive, 30 minutes of entertainment ever! #venice #venezia #wheninvenice @cassola21.’
Carol McGiffin, 63, sat in a gondola with her toyboy husband Mark Cassidy, 42, as they celebrated his birthday in Venice this weekend
Carol, who has appeared on and off the Loose Women panel since its launch in 2000, recently called it ‘very woke’ and insisted she ‘doesn’t miss it at all’ (pictured in 2022)
Carol was forced to quit Loose Women in May after she claimed on a bizarre radio station that the Covid pandemic was a plot by the World Health Organization to take over every government.
The broadcaster, who has appeared on and off the Loose Women panel since its launch in 2000, recently called the program “very woke” and “doesn’t miss it at all”.
Speaking about her dramatic departure, Carol told Women’s Own magazine: ‘No, I don’t miss Loose Women at all. My pronouns are P and Off. It’s just very awake and I can’t deal with the wakefulness.
‘That’s not the reason I’m not here. I’m not there because of other things.’
She added that she misses her co-stars but “doesn’t miss being on TV.”
MailOnline contacted ITV for comment at the time.
Carol announced in May that she had left the lunchtime show in protest. ITV insisted she signed a contract with clauses that were ‘completely unjust and unworkable’.
The Mail on Sunday subsequently revealed that a row over freedom of expression was at the heart of her departure, following a response to her tirade in an interview on TNT talk radio.
Taking to Instagram in December, Carol joked that she had been ‘drinking mostly rosé wine’ following her departure from ITV’s Loose Women
She has been enjoying a lovely relaxing holiday with her husband since leaving the show (pictured with husband Mark Cassidy, 41)
In it, the original panelist also accused renowned mainstream news organizations of conspiring to brainwash the public, causing a massive mental health crisis, after being “bought off by the government.”
Carol added that she believed then Health Secretary Matt Hancock was trying to bring in Covid patients from France to fill “empty hospital beds” in Britain at the height of the pandemic.
ITV chiefs saw a response to her rant on social media, while others called the network to demand she be sacked.
Carol, who was married to DJ Chris Evans from 1991 to 1998, last appeared on Loose Women on March 2, a week before her TNT Radio interview for The Freeman Report, with James Freeman.
But in her radio interview she hosted the show, one of ITV’s most popular daytime programmes, hinting she had been censored by bosses.
She said: ‘I always think back to when I started working in television and radio as the good old days because there were a lot less police, I think. Much less restricted and it was a freer place to be.
‘When I look back at the old Loose Womens that I did from 2000 until I left in 2013, they are completely different. There is so much transgression. People take so much offense to so much and they never did that.”
