Jeff Brazier opens up about parenting 'regret' as he shares 'important' lesson (2025)

The star appeared on Loose Men as he spoke candidly about being a single dad to two young men

Jeff Brazier shared his one parenting "regret" while on Loose Men as the panel opened up about their experiences of male role models.

The ITV daytime show switched up it's usual name for Loose Men as it welcomed Jeff Brazier, Iain Stirling and Jordan Banjo to the panel led by This Morning presenter Craig Doyle.

The spin-off show airs throughout the year with an all-male panel highlighting the importance of male mental health struggles.

During Tuesday's episode they tackled topics close to their hearts including issues confronting the modern man following recent headlines around ‘male toxicity’ and concerns about online content, as well as Sir Gareth Southgate's concerns around ‘toxic male influencers’.

The panel discussed Netflix's hit series Adolescence that sees a 13-year-old boy arrested for the murder of a young girl in his class. The series tackles "incel culture" growing in young men that has seen a rise in violence against women and girls.

Iain commented: "There has been a shift now to children living their life online, we might be scared of it, we might not want to be part of it but it’s a harsh reality that children are online more than they’re probably out and about and it should be policed in the same way.

"If someone attacks you online, that should be treated the same way if someone attacks you down the park and should be treated as seriously."

The men then opened up about male "role models", as Iain continued: “I think it’s relatively dangerous rhetoric that there’s not enough role models for men, I know loads of role models for men.

"I don’t think that’s necessarily the problem. I think it needs to be [a] base level of what men are trying to achieve and if you can pick and choose from other people, there seems to be this desire at the minute to create this dream man…

"So I think you need to look at, what is the role that you need to give to young men and where can we find that inspiration from different places? That’s more helpful than, 'Let's create the million dollar man" and Craig replied: "It’s not about being perfect."

Jeff then reflected on him being a single parent to his two sons Bobby and Freddy after the death of their mother, Jade Goody. He shared: "In terms of doing it on my own, I put all the pressure in the world on myself because I think the way that I coped with any challenges in my childhood was to be positive and to kind of roll your sleeves up and, ‘I’m going to get on with this’.

"So, naturally that became the coping strategy that I adopted when it was like, ‘Right, I’ve got two children on my own and I need to somehow get through this and I need to cope.’ So, I made my circle really small and I just dealt with what was in front of me but I used the shield of positivity, which meant I was batting off anything negative."

The star continued that he "regrets" doing that, as he said: "There’s no shame or embarrassment but I would have gone back and spoke to that younger version of myself and been like, ‘You need to be the full menu, for yourself as much as them’.

"You need to be able to show the full range of emotions in that if you feel really negative one day or a bit despondent, or like you can’t carry all of this pressure and weight, then you have to be able to voice that and share that with friends and let them see that as well because that would have been a really important part."

Catch up on today’s Loose Men on ITVX and STV Player now // Loose Women airs weekdays at 12.30pm on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player