Emmerdale’s Claire King teases major tension between Kim Tate and Andrea at Christmas

EMMERDALE’S Claire King has teased there will be major tension between Kim Tate and Andrea this Christmas.

The family dynamics this year will be slightly different this year considering her son Jamie has split up with his wife, after it was found out that he was cheating on her with receptionist Belle Dingle.

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Jamie and Andrea have gone their separate ways, but they still share their six-year-old daughter Millie, who has been living with her mum since the split.

Andrea wants nothing to do with Jamie or his family and certainly doesn’t want to spend Christmas Day with them considering she’s clashed with her mother-in-law in the past.

But like most grandparents, Kim wants to spend precious time with her grandchild at this time of year, but it looks like Andrea is going to make it her mission to stop that happening.

Claire recently told The Mirror: “She wants to spend time with her granddaughter Millie, especially at Christmas, but she’s got a battle on her hands with Millie’s mum Andrea.

“Kim’s son Jamie has split up from Andrea. Kim still wants to see her granddaughter who she loves very much, so it’s not an easy time.”

Despite not being able to see her own flesh and blood, it’s not all doom and gloom for the village baddie as she also hinted that Kim is on the brink of finding herself a new man.

Claire added: “There might be a little love interest coming along.

“I can’t say who with, but there aren’t many men left in the village that she hasn’t dated, so you can probably narrow it down…”

Many fans of the show will have realised that Kim had been missing from our screens for the first half of the year when Covid-19 hit.

Claire, who has played Kim T on the ITV soap for over 30 years, returned to set in October while most of her other co-stars went back in June.

Claire was told to stay at home and isolate due to suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and compromised immune system, which could put her at high risk if she ever contracted the deadly bug.

She has taken lockdown very seriously because of her illness and at the beginning of the pandemic she relied on family and friends to get her shopping, and only went outside in her back garden for fresh air.

Being cooped up in the house for such long made Claire think of ways to keep herself busy, so she started learning Spanish and watching box sets with her partner.

She explained: “I could have gone back earlier but because of my low immunity due to my rheumatoid arthritis, Emmerdale thought they’d better not risk it and decided to write me out until they knew it was safe.

“You can’t muck around with coronavirus and for the first month or two I basically didn’t go out of the house.

“Unfortunately I know people who’ve got it and people who have died from it, so you have to take it seriously and you’ve got to be respectful of others.”