CORONATION Street’s Shelley King admitted “I’ve been hell to live with” after she took on alter-ego Yasmeen Nazir’s domestic abuse storyline.
The 65-year-old actress, who has played the restaurant owner in the ITV soap since 2014, opened up about how her job affected her home life on Lorraine yesterday morning.
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Back in 2019 Shelley’s character Yasmeen started dating Geoff Metcalfe (Ian Bartholomew) and the couple’s relationship has been a huge focal point in the soap ever since.
As time went on Geoff’s manipulative side came out and he managed to do a range of evil things to his wife – including burning all her clothes, making out she was an alcoholic and giving her an STI.
And luckily Shelley’s wife was there to support her when things got tough when she was off camera.
She told host of the ITV show, Lorraine: “I’ve been hell to live with – I mean, poor Trilby!
“Thank goodness she’s a wonderful director and actor and understands the process that we all have to go through.”
Not only that, Shelley also had co-star Ian to fall back on if she wasn’t feeling herself.
She added: “And thank god for Ian, whom I love and I think is one of my dearest friends because we trusted each other and we helped each other so much and we talked about it and we talked through our problems.
“Because we have to visit a lot of dark places just to recreate that mood.”
After endless months of torture, things hit an all-time low for Yasmeen in May last year when she stabbed her husband in the neck with a bottle out of self-defense.
She was sent to prison, but as she spent time behind bars, the truth about her wicked other half started to seep out.
Yasmeen was finally let out of prison when they found evidence of Geoff’s ungodly ways.
Then in December last year Geoff finally got the comeuppance he deserved when he fell off a roof and died as he tried to murder his wife.
But poor Yasmeen hasn’t got her break from Geoff just yet.
The Speed Dahl owner has been left traumatised by what he’s done to her and now she’s suffering from hallucinations that he’s still alive.
Despite acting out such tough scenes, Shelley admitted that she’s missed having Ian around since his character was killed off last year.
She added: “I miss him dreadfully! I mean, Yasmeen is still being haunted by him. I just wish I could see (Ian) more and the family!
“His kids and his family. But we can’t do anything – but soon we’ll be down that motorway having a picnic, I hope, very soon!”
Things will soon start to get better for the widow.
Last week we revealed that Geoff’s son Tim will transfer all of his dad’s money to her so that he can pay off his debt.
Watch Coronation Street every Monday, Wednesday and Fridays at 7.30pm and 8.30pm on ITV
