Coronation Street actress Samia Longchambon has revealed she thinks her late father “sent” her husband Sylvain to her as there are “so many common threads” between the two.
The soap star, 42, met the French skater when she was partnered with him during the eighth season of Dancing On Ice, which aired in 2013.
“It wasn’t love at first skate for me and Sylvain,” she told Prima magazine.
“I was too busy learning to move around on the ice to be thinking about anything like that!
“Things between us didn’t start until months after we first met. I think my dad sent Sylvain to me.
“My dad died in 2009 and French was his second language.
“He loved France and his sister Samia, who I’m named after, lives about an hour away from where Sylvain grew up in Lyon.
“Once we got to know each other, I was like, ‘Oh, this is weird’. There were so many common threads with him that I was like, ‘I feel like my dad just sent you’.”
Longchambon married the skater in 2016 and they share a son together called Yves Joseph, who was born in 2015.
The actress also has a daughter from her marriage to property developer Matthew Smith.
The actress said: “It’s quite nice being able to watch the (Dancing On Ice) videos with the kids now and go, ‘I did that’.
“I don’t think I’d be able to do it now. I love going skating with Sylvain and, weirdly, I’m more confident skating now because there’s no pressure.
“Every week, you’d feel that pressure that it was live on telly and there are a lot of people at home who are just willing you to fall, because it’s funny. It was a lot of pressure.
“But when it comes to other TV shows, I say ‘never say never’ to anything. I’m 42 now and I’ve spent a lot of my life being scared because of anxiety. A challenge is always good.”
The actress, who plays Maria Connor on ITV soap Coronation Street, also said she has to limit her social media use due to the trolling she gets online.
She told Prima: “I’ve had to deal with loads of trolling over the years. It’s usually when Maria’s caught up in something that’s not great and people forget that I’m not this character!
“It’s not nice – this industry can be hard if you’re not thick-skinned, and I’m not.
“So, I have to discipline myself with social media – reading mean comments can feel like picking a scab; you don’t want to read it, but then you do end up reading it, and it ruins your day.
“Historically, there’s been a couple of times I have responded to trolls.
“Weirdly, though, I find that most people back down and apologise when you call them out.
“‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that’, they might say. And I’ll think, ‘Well, I’m a human with feelings, and it hurts – but it’s fine, let’s move on’.”
Longchambon’s storylines on the soap include giving birth to a stillborn son and marrying a gay Spanish man so he can get a visa.
Read the full interview in the July issue of Prima, on sale Wednesday May 28.
