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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Entertainment
Ryan Paton

ITV Coronation Street's Sally Ann Matthews uncovers 'naughty' link to show legend

Sally Ann Matthews is one of Coronation Street's most recognisable faces.

The soap star first joined the cast of the show in 1986 and played Jenny Bradley for 5 years until 1991. She briefly returned in 1993 before becoming a full time cast member once again in 2015.

Jenny has endured a turbulent time on the Cobbles, which has included a rollercoaster love life with characters such as Kevin Webster and Johnny Connor.

READ MORE: Coronation Street's Bernie Winter star has a famous wife soap fans may recognise

She is now the landlady of the Rovers Return but her romantic woes continued this week as she thought she lost Leo Thompkins, who has been offered a job in construction in Canada. Jenny rebounded and kissed Stephen on Friday's episode, but disaster struck as Leo returned with an engagement ring having had a change of heart.

Sally's lovelife away from the Cobbles is fortunately less dramatic than her onscreen counterpart as she is happily married to Nicholas Rhodes - and the couple share two children.

Sally first joined the cast of Corrie when she was aged just 15 and she has previously opened up on how her acting career had impacted her childhood, with her struggling to fit in at school.

She had to balance the pressures of fame with the usual insecurities of being a teenage girl. And nasty comments from those in showbiz even caused her to develop an eating disorder.

In a previous interview with the Daily Mirror ahead of her return to the Cobbles in 2015, she admitted that a remark from a TV critic about how she looked led to a battle with bulimia.

It was an eight-month ordeal that Sally had kept quiet for 20 years. She said: “When I was in Corrie first time around there was no real celebrity culture. No Twitter, Facebook.

“In those days, before social media, people were much more focused on the TV critics – who were sort of celebrities themselves."

She recalled a critic made a damaging comment after Jenny got engaged, which said "what would a handsome Frenchman boy like Patric see in a little pudding like Jenny Bradley?" She said: “For me, that was then eight months of active bulimia and then recovery."

Sally first quit Corrie in 1993 to pursue other roles. She said: "I thought I would go and do lots of regional theatre to earn my stripes and gain respect as a result. I didn't do panto and I turned down the offer of doing a record.

"I am not interested in being famous - I wanted to be 70 and still acting and I thought if I did all that, I wouldn't have a chance." She since appeared in soaps such as Emmerdale and Waterloo Road before she made her triumphant return to the Cobbles in 2015.

The 51-year-old is happier than ever as part of the cast and the soap is in her DNA as she uncovered she was a cousin of soap legend Amanda Barrie, who played Alma Baldwin, during a special DNA secrets episode in 2018.

They were in the show together for four years and Sally told Radio Times how the two share the same "naughty" streak.

She said: “The joy when I saw it was Amanda was overwhelming and I thought, ‘well, of course it is, that all makes sense now.’ We rarely had scenes together but, because of the way we worked back then, we were all in the rehearsal room together and knew everyone really well. I think we share a naughty, slightly bonkers streak."

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