Nadia Sawalha's obsession with crime began six years ago. “I’m fascinated by true crime, and it’s weird that I wasn’t fascinated earlier, whether it’s podcasts, telly or even reading it." While some people may see this as unusual, the genre's popularity is growing.
"I was a bit confused as to why I like it so much, but now I have no shame as I completely understand that it’s about my total fascination with human beings and human nature," she said. "What makes us do the things we do and why do some people survive things and others don’t and why some people are twisted by their bad childhood whilst others from a similar childhood may go on to do the most extraordinary things."
This is why she's a major fan of TRUE CRIME, a channel dedicated to sharing the real stories of victims and their families. One of their upcoming series is Murder UK, where each episode will explore a crime committed in Britain.
Unlike other documentaries, this series uses criminologist David Wilson to analyse the cases, giving audiences an overall picture of the killers' psychology, as well as pointing out potential motives.
“This new series Murder UK is right up my strada. I love a show where there are good professionals, so I love that there are psychologists and criminologists. It’s respectful because these are people’s lives they're talking about.
“Good channels that deal with true crime stories always show respect for the person that’s lost their life, for the people that are left picking up the pieces and in some circumstances for the perpetrator, as often they’re somebody that will have a severe mental health condition."
So, what can we expect from the show?
"You’ll see great testimonies and what makes a great investigation."
The first episode tells the story of Wayne Coventry, who after 18 years with his childhood sweetheart, falls in love with another partner, which leads him blindingly into a toxic relationship that turns deadly.
"I’m fascinated by toxic relationships and controlling relationships, and we see a lot of that in men, but there are some women, of course, that do the same thing," says Nadia.
"Episode 1's a cracker because it goes really into borderline personality disorder and why this woman who is in this incredibly toxic relationship with this quite sweet chap, it’s heart-breaking how it ends in such a deadly way.”
Nadia Sawalha on Loose Women
Aside from watching the True Crime channel, Nadia is a long-term panellist on Loose Women, the ITV chat show which has recently turned 25.
Speaking fondly of the show, she says, “There’s nothing quite as brilliant as women talking; I just love the way that women talk. I think we can go into things in such depth: one minute, we can be laughing, and the next minute, we can be crying.
"We will bring in our own experience and over 25 years, we’ve got an audience that have watched and sometimes grown up with the women. There's always somebody in that four that somebody will love or not quite like because that’s the way of life, and so I think we serve anything that anybody could want from a women’s chat.”
Nadia was one of the original panellists when the show began in 1999 and continued until 2002, before returning again in 2013. During this time, she has made many great friends, including journalists Kaye Adams and Jane Moore and comedian Judi Love.
“We go through heart-breaking stories, big news stories (only if we’ve got our own varying take on it) and we can be very funny – we’ve got the glorious Judi Love who does sell-out comedy tours – I love her so much - and we’ve got great journalists; there's such a mixture of smart, sassy, no-bull women.”
Nadia Sawalha on Instagram and her YouTube Channel
If you want to see more of Nadia, you can find her over on the YouTube channel The Sawalha-Adderleys, which she shares with her husband, Mark. The pair post lifestyle videos (also known as 'vlogs'), film and TV reviews and cooking videos, as well as their take on the news. Currently, they have over 142,000 subscribers and counting.
Like with her Instagram, (@nadiasawalha) Nadia tries to make her YouTube content as authentic as possible and uses her platform to make people feel uplifted, rather than focusing on the unattainable "perfection" that we so often see online.
“What I love most about YouTube is, like with my Instagram – everything I do on Instagram has to be really truthful to me... A lot of the time Instagram posts can leave people feeling ‘less than’, and I always wanna leave people feeling ‘more than’, like better fed, happier, more engaged in something that I’m passionate about."
"I never want to make somebody feel like “Oh my God, I’ve got to have this perfect life” because nobody has a perfect life and the more perfect something looks, the less perfect something is behind the scenes."
Some of her most popular YouTube videos include Vlogmas, where they upload a festive video everyday in December.
"Vlogmas – as ever – has been filled with highs as lows. My sister and the gingerbread house disaster/success has been both hilarious and exhausting and terrifying! Mark’s continuous hats – I think this year he’s got 50 new hats – so he’s driving me mad, he keeps jumping out at me and making me scream which at the time is annoying, but when I watch it back, it makes me laugh and our girls howl with laughter. All the cooking and all the decorating and all the disaster…”
"So much of YouTube is people going ‘oh look, here I am, here’s my perfect tree, here’s my perfect canape… It’s just a real Christmas, and so, therefore, it helps people feel not so intimated or any sense of failure – that’s my aim always.”
Nadia Sawalha on cooking with her sister
Another long-running series they have on their YouTube channel is The Curly Cooks of Croydon, which sees Nadia (a Celebrity MasterChef winner and cookbook writer) and her older sister Dina sharing recipes with the audience and unlike other cooking shows, they're not afraid to show the results, even if it goes wrong.
Since the success of the series, the siblings have gone on to present their show live on stage at food events.
“It’s been amazing how much I enjoy a lot of Dina's food, she’s such a good cook. I always say she's a much better cook than me."
Dina has been plant-based for years and makes lots of delicious vegan dishes with vegetables. "Something that’s become a real favourite of mine is her ‘Croydonese’, it’s a Bolognese but made with mushrooms – it’s so delicious - so that’s become a staple because we keep hearing more and more that mushrooms are so good for your health.”
“In one video we've gone full retro. We did a Curly Cooks of Croydon where it was all jacket potatoes. People were going nuts about it, and it reminded me of the glory of the jacket potato."
So what's Nadia's favourite winter comfort meal?
"Jacket potatoes, roasts, we do a lot of Middle Eastern food, soup – I love leek and potato soup with soda bread.”
Nadia Sawalha on ADHD
Back in 2022, Nadia revealed that she had been diagnosed with ADHD in her late 50s and that receiving the diagnosis changed her life.
"I can now see what my skills are (since getting the diagnosis), instead of seeing what my skills aren't."
“I didn’t understand how much I would mask myself. For instance, somebody would say ‘just look on the map and you’ll be able to see it,’ and I’d be going ‘Oh God, I’m really stupid, I don’t know where it is, I can’t do it’... The word “stupid” has been used so much in my life by myself. I’d walk into a room and think I’m an idiot because I’d lose my phone 10 times a day.
"Now, I’d say, ‘My brain is not great with maps, but it’s great with talking to people’, so instead I’d go up and chat to people to ask them for help and directions."
"When I had my ADHD assessment, I said I've had a sense of failure all my life and the assessor replied, ‘What makes you think you’re a failure?’. I gave her a list, and she said ‘you’re a successful TV presenter’, and now I think yes I am ‘successful’, despite never being able to sit still in school and getting 1 GCSE and never properly finishing school – I've used that to my advantage and it’s the way that my brain works – it jumps here, it jumps there. And that’s okay.”
“Since getting the diagnosis, I’ve realised that there’s no such thing as a neurotypical brain. None of us are neurotypical, so it’s released me from an awful lot of trolling myself. My whole last decade has been about getting rid of the trolls; I just invited them in and they said 'We’re destroy you’re body and when you’ve sorted that one out, we’re go onto what a failure you are', so the diagnosis has helped me to remove those self-doubt trolls from my brain.”
Nadia Sawalha on turning 60
“Before the run up to me being 60 I was really grateful, I have a friend who has stage 4 breast cancer and all she would love to do is to get to 40, so I very much do have that gratitude, but I had a day of feeling a little unnerved and a little bit of ‘oh no my bones are starting to creak, and my knees aren’t working'."
Now, Nadia has begun to embrace her new decade. "Since then, I’ve become extremely irritating. I’ve turned it around in an annoying way for everyone around me, and I’ve started to go, ‘Listen, take it from a woman who’s 60’. I’ve become very wise and extremely full of myself.”, she jokes, “I love being a wise 60-year-old woman”.
Nadia Sawalha's New Year's Resolutions
“I love New Year’s Resolutions, but what happens when you’re a wise woman of 60 years is that you just stand back with interest and wonder how long you’ll stick to them because you just know that they won’t last!
"For years, every New Year’s Day has been the start of the diet that was going to change my life and a few years ago, I promised myself that it was never going to be my resolution again – I’ve got a brilliant hack: ‘riots, not diets’, and that’s how I feel.”
Nadia Sawalha is an ambassador for the TRUE CRIME channel. “Murder UK” will premiere on 13 January and will air on Mondays and Tuesdays at 10PM. All episodes will be available on WATCH FREE UK after linear broadcast.
Arabella Horspool is a Commercial Content Writer for Yours at Bauer Media. She's a bookworm who is passionate about TV, film and theatre. She enjoys cooking, scrapbooking, playing board games and spending time with her pet dogs, tortoise and chickens.