Coleen Nolan has revealed that her partner Ryan Brockbank made the first move in their relationship by sliding into her direct messages on Instagram, turning a casual online greeting into a full-blown romance.
The Loose Women presenter, 61, has been enjoying a blossoming relationship with the fashion lecturer, 41, for the past few months. The romance comes in the wake of her famously difficult and unsuccessful stint on E4’s Celebs Go Dating, with Coleen officially confirming the relationship last month to the delight of her fans and followers.
Now, Coleen has shared the exact details of how Ryan initiated contact, revealing that the fashion retail professional messaged her out of the blue in May to ask her out for a drink. Ryan later posted a screenshot of their very first interaction on social media, giving fans an intimate look at how their modern love story began.
In the screenshot shared online, Ryan’s opening message read: "Hey. Hope you are having a great weekend. Drink?"
Demonstrating her characteristic wit, Coleen initially replied simply with a red love heart emoji. However, Ryan was completely undeterred by the minimalist response and continued the conversation by asking whether she was tuned into the Eurovision Song Contest. The pair quickly fell into a playful, flirty exchange, with Coleen firing back: "Don’t lie I bet you’re watching it."
After posting the initial exchange to social media, Ryan captioned the screenshot with "How it started…", followed by "How it’s going", accompanied by a cozy selfie of himself and Coleen together.
Things are evidently moving swiftly for the happy couple, with Coleen recently confessing that she is even open to walking down the aisle for a third time after finding her match in Ryan.
During an episode of her podcast, Nolans Uncensored, last month, the smitten star admitted she was ready to get married again—a revelation that came as a complete shock to her 25-year-old daughter, Ciara. As conversation on the podcast turned toward Ciara’s upcoming wedding preparations, her daughter jokingly pointed out that her mother was eager to tie the knot for a third time.
"I always said I wouldn’t get married again, but I hadn’t met Ryan," Coleen confessed to her listeners. "He’s what I have been looking for, for probably 50 years."
A visibly mortified Ciara interrupted her mother on air, insisting that she did not want to discuss the topic and that it made her feel slightly unwell. Laughing off her daughter’s dramatic reaction, Coleen promised: "Don’t worry, we won’t gatecrash yours."
Coleen’s romantic history includes two previous marriages. She was married to actor Shane Richie from 1990 to 1999, with whom she shares two sons, Shane, 37, and Jake, 33. She later married her second husband, Ray Fensome, in 2007, welcoming daughter Ciara before the couple divorced in 2018.
The television personality’s newfound happiness has also manifested in some permanent declarations of affection. Last week, the star revealed that she and Ryan had gotten matching tattoos, prompting a hilarious reaction from Ciara, who bluntly told podcast listeners that her mother had "lost the plot."
Recounting the incident on air, Ciara told listeners: "Mum’s got tattoos. Matching with Ryan! Show them the R and the heart on your t**s." When Coleen attempted to stop her by saying "No Ciara," her daughter pushed on with the story.
"She’s got two tattoos, she’s got an R and a heart and ‘Until the end’ on her forearm. I want to kill myself. She sent it in our group and we all wanted to kill ourselves. We were all texting each other privately going ‘mum’s lost the plot’. She’s lost her head."
Giggling sheepishly at her daughter’s theatrical exasperation, Coleen defended her ink, replying: "I haven’t though, just lost my heart."
The presenter is believed to have crossed paths with Ryan following her appearance on Celebs Go Dating, an experience she has previously described without hesitation as an absolute "disaster." Opening up about the emotional toll of the dating show and the rejection she faced on national television, she confessed that her self-esteem had taken a massive hit.
"My ego was on the floor," she admitted when reflecting on the process. "It was mortifying when people did not put their hands up [if they wanted you]. It was a bit humiliating, but you’ve got to take it. It is transparent and you learn along the way."
Prior to finding happiness with Ryan, Coleen spoke candidly to The Sun about her frustrations with the dating agency’s matchmaking process and the fundamental difficulties she encountered while trying to find a romantic spark.
"It’s just not happened for me," she explained. "And then the one time when I thought, ‘Oh I had a great date’, he got rid of me. I think we both knew it was a friendship thing. But here’s my issue, every date they’ve got me is from Essex, I live in bloody Staffordshire. It’s just too far, so that’s been an issue, but there’s just no one with that romantic spark."
Despite the initial setbacks on television, Coleen noted that the therapeutic elements of the show ultimately proved beneficial. "The agents, the therapy has been absolutely brilliant, and I think from the start to the end, I’ve massively changed."
Ryan, who works as a lecturer at the prestigious Fashion Retail Academy—the renowned institution previously attended by reality star and influencer Molly-Mae Hague—seems to have brought a renewed sense of romance into the singer and presenter’s life. The couple are thought to have already enjoyed a romantic getaway together, with Ryan frequently documenting their time by sharing snapshots of Coleen across his social media channels.
As their relationship continues to flourish away from the television cameras, Coleen appears more than content to embrace this unexpected new chapter, leaving her challenging dating show experiences firmly in the past.
