Denise Welch made a big announcement, live on Loose Women this afternoon.

After the weekend’s tabloids were full of reports of her so called affair with events organiser Lincoln Townley, the Celebrity Big brother winner felt she had to speak out and revealed that she and her husband of 24 years Tim Healy had officially separated some time ago and that her relationship with Lincoln was nothing that her family didn’t already know about.

The newly blonde actress – who hit the headlines also last week when Michael Madsen claimed she propositioned him for sex in the Big Brother house – told Loose Women viewers:

I just want to say, this is going to be really difficult for me, but the loose Women audience over the years have given my so much support, so my family made a decision that we would talk about this today.

Tim and I separated some time ago and so I’m not having an affair, we’ve been living our own lives for some time now. But the press furore after I came out of Celebrity Big Brother naively took us by storm but there has been nothing in the papers that my family didn’t know about.

She added:

I wanted to thank everybody for their support and Tim and I feel a sense of relief that we don’t have to hide this anymore, we’ve actually become better friends since we made the decision but we wanted to have Christmas with the family without telling anybody.

I left the house last night to come to London, with great hugs from Tim, great hugs from the boys saying how proud of me that they were. We are all just going to move forward as a family, Tim and I are still going to be co-parents, we love each other very much and we don’t want to lie anymore.

I’m not having an affair, we are officially separated.

Speaking about how she intends to move forward, Denise claimed that she and Tim will now be happier and better friends, because they don’t have to live a lie any longer. She confessed that she takes inspiration from Dawn French, who split from her husband Lenny Henry a few years ago.

Welch explained:

Dawn French said she’d had far more years in a happy marriage than in an unhappy one and that’s how I want to take the 24 years that we’ve had and move on, so that we can still love each other but in a different way.

Denise and Tim share two sons, Matthew and Louis but rather than this split affecting them adversely, she is insistent that her boys will actually be happier with their new way of life. She continued:

I think to be honest the kids are quite relieved, because they want us to be happy and I think that we are going to be happier. We are still going to spend time together.

We had speculated yesterday that something was amiss between Denise and Tim and wondered if they perhaps had an open marriage, as just hours after news broke of her affair last week, they were pictured laughing and enjoying a pub lunch together with pals.

At least now she’s set the record straight, however the timings don’t quite add up for us and if Denise is saying they broke up a few months ago but wanted to live as a family for Christmas, then why are sources reporting that she and Lincoln have been together since April of last year.

Some of our Twitter pals agree and just minutes ago, @Emmybabee said:

I don’t [believe it] at all! I think it’s all a cover up because she won CBB she doesn’t want to ruin the public’s perception of her!

@grantapp added:

All too convenient. Wouldn’t have admitted anything if she hadn’t been caught out

What do you think of Denise’s revelations? Let us know in the comments section below.