Sue Cleaver says she “never imagined” her alcohol dependency getting to that “state”
Coronation Street‘s Sue Cleaver says she no longer has “any fear around alcohol,” as she issues a major health update after years of battling with alcohol. The actress, who is best known for playing Eileen Grimshaw on the ITV soap since 2000, says she is no longer “dependent” on alcohol.
Sue, 61, has been honest about her alcohol intake in the past and opened up about the health benefits since cutting down on her wine consumption, which has impacted on her weight loss. In a recent interview with Prima she said: “I don’t have any fear around alcohol any more, and that is really freeing.”
The ITV star will feature on the cover of Prima’s magazine in November. She told the magazine: “I don’t have any fear around alcohol any more, and that is really freeing. I never imagined getting to that state. I thought I had a dependency. I thought I couldn’t get by without having a glass of wine at night. I thought life wouldn’t be great without a glass of wine.
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“It would be absolutely great without wine. I just thought it wouldn’t. It’s the thinking around it that is the problem.” She added: “There are so many people my age who I speak to that are depressed about reaching 60. You feel like this is the end of the line, that everything goes down from here.
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“I absolutely don’t feel that way. I just feel like the world really is my oyster now, and there’s so much available out there. There’s so much that you can do.”
She also says she “really struggled” with her identity when she was younger, after being adopted as a child. Sue said: “My family are my family, my mum is my mum, whether the DNA is involved or not. They are such a big part of me. But a lot of adopted children have this sense that something is a little bit different.”
During her stint on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! in 2022 Sue said she had reconciled with her birth mother. Sue said she was in her early 20s when she appeared at the Royal Exchange in Manchester and met an actor who thought she looked like his wife. The man asked Sue when she was born and then rang his wife saying “I’ve found her.”
Sue also said her family is “bizarrely interconnected” to other Coronation Street stars. She said Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt, is godmother to one of her half-sisters, and the other half-sister’s husband, John Bowe, appeared on the cobbles as Duggie Ferguson.
You can read the full interview with Sue Cleaver in Prima’s November issue, which goes on sale this Wednesday (September 25).
