Helen Flanagan reveals she developed an eating disorder during Coronation Street fame

29 October 2024

Helen Flanagan developed an eating disorder during her time on 'Coronation Street'.

Helen Flanagan developed an eating disorder in the years after she found fame

The 34-year-old actress - who is now mother to Matilda, seven, Delilah, five, and three-year-old Charlie with her former fiancé Scott Sinclair - took over the role of Rosie Webster on the ITV soap opera in 2000 but revealed that in the years that followed, she found a sense of "control" in restricting her diet despite threats that she would lose her job.

Speaking on 'The Life of Bryony' podcast, she said: "I remember kind of like school nurse being involved and like 'Coronation Street' They would call my mum up, and she was like, ‘Helen, you'll lose your job’. And I think it was just a sense of control.

"I think having Matilda for me is a really good, like, I need to be a good example because it, I would hate for her to have an eating disorder because it's f****** miserable."

Helen stayed in the part of Rosie until 2012 and in that time her character's mother Sally Metcalfe (Sally Dynevor) unsuccessfully tried to push her into showbusiness, and in her late teens she began an affair with her English teacher John Stape (Graeme Hawley) before becoming his kidnap victim.

She returned to the role five years after her initial exit but left again in 2018 when her alter-ego left the Manchester backstreet for a modelling opportunity in Japan, and Helen explained that even now she has "weird little quirks" with her diet.

She said: "I've just started to eat bread again because I just wouldn't touch it. When I got into this thing where, like, me and my ex-fiancé split up, that I just suddenly was like, I'm not touching bread and I'm not touching pasta. I get these, like, weird little quirks that I do with my food

Helen is now in a relationship with Robbie Talbot and the pair met just before she signed up to appear on E4's 'Celebs Go Dating' but he explained that they weren't "serious" at the time.

He told OK! Magazine: "We weren’t serious at that point, we were just dating. And we communicated the whole way through. I knew all along what was happening."