CORONATION Street star Colson Smith has revealed the soap has ditched the storyline to cover his incredible ten stone weight loss.
His character, policeman Craig Tinker, was set to undergone a transformation on screen as part of the plot but the idea was scrapped when filming was halted during lockdown.
Colson, 23, started running daily and overhauled his diet at the start of the first lockdown and over a period of 18 months his weight has fallen from 22 stone to 12 stone.
Speaking about how his achievement was set to be marked on screen, he explained: “We discussed it and I really wanted to do it. I thought it would be a good move for Craig.
“We were going to go down the route of him having a bit of workplace bullying, which led to the weight loss and then into deeper depths of eating disorder and body dysmorphia.”
Colson added: “I think we’ve got Covid to blame for the lack of that story. It’s a shame, because it’s something that as an actor I would have loved to have played.
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“Now, having been through that myself, and lived through the difficulties of it, I think it’s such an important story to tell, because it’s a taboo that boys don’t talk about. I’ve found it hard. Relationships with weight and with food just aren’t spoken about enough.”
As well as getting in shape, Colson learnt to swim before taking part in ITV’s celebrity sporting challenge show The Games.
Millions of viewers saw the actor smash his personal best by more than ten seconds after competing in the 50m freestyle in the Olympic pool. But Colson said his weight had got in the way of him ever learning as a child.
“When I took on The Games I couldn’t swim,” he confessed. “As a kid I never wanted to be in a swimming pool. For me it was associated with humiliation.
“In school, with your top off, being fat, you don’t want to go swimming. Swimming was a big no-no.
“Then I realised that I was going to have to do it for this show, so I had some swimming lessons before The Games’ swimming lessons started. I could do a doggy paddle, but I couldn’t swim a length, so we progressed from there.
“If someone had said to me two years ago that I’d be competing in The Games, I wouldn’t have believed it, because I always put limits on myself.”
