Sue Cleaver on leaving Coronation Street

Sue Cleaver opens up about leaving Coronation Street after 25 years…

Today on Loose Women, Sue Cleaver appeared on the panel and discussed her recent announcement that she will be leaving The Street, after 25 years of playing Eileen Grimshaw.

After taking a look back at some of Eileen’s most iconic moments, Sue revealed what the show means to her: “25 years is a long, long time. I went into that show when my son – well he’s 29 now – so he was very, very young and it just became my family.”

“It gave me the opportunity to do what I love, acting, but still be a mum, to make sure I was there in the morning and there at night to put him to bed.” 

Coronation Street is to welcome back a familiar face to the cobbles when Julie Carp returns next month after almost 10 years to surprise her sister Eileen Grimshaw. Actor Katy Cavanagh has already begun filming and Julie will arrive in Weatherfield on February 21st.

Speaking to today’s panellists Charlene White, Frankie Bridge and Katie Piper, Sue shared why she feels now is the right time to leave:

“I’m now 61 and I feel I’m now at a stage in my life, like most mums we have responsibilities, we have other things we have to consider [and] we’re bringing up our families – and I’ve got to the stage, my son is grown up now, he’s 29, I have no responsibilities left and I want to do something new. I want this decade to be about me.”  

“I really want to empower other women. Society at this point wants us all to shuffle off, don’t they. Just go away quietly, ‘You’ve had your days’. No, this is my decade. I’m more excited about this decade, hopefully you know, as long as I remain well, that this is going to be the most exciting decade for me. I’m really excited.” 

On how it will feel to leave the ITV soap, she commented: “There have been moments of fear about stepping outside your comfort zone but I strongly believe that only good things happen… Nothing good happens if you don’t step out of your comfort zone.”  

Coronation Street – Ep 1138384 – A stunned Eileen Grimshaw gets an unwanted surprise

Opening up on filming her final scenes, Sue said: “We started filming my exit story line, lovely Katy Cavanagh has come back, who plays Julie [Carp] and we’ve literally started filming that.”  

“It’s going to be emotional, it’s going to be hard. I’ve got a lot of friends there that I will still have a connection to it [the show]. You know, my husband is the lighting guy on it so I don’t feel I’m going too far away from it but, it will be very emotional. I just know in my gut that it is the right thing to do and I’m going with that.” 

Loose Women airs weekdays from 12:30pm on ITV, ITVX, STV and STV Player