Unlike the no-nonsense Eileen she plays on Coronation Street, Sue Cleaver has revealed that she has a lot of insecurities and many stem from her teenage years
On the iconic Coronation Street, Eileen Grimshaw is famed for her no-nonsense attitude and readiness to confront anyone who dares to cross her path. From fiery altercations with Gail Platt to laying down the law at the Rovers Return, Eileen is a force to be reckoned with.
Yet, as Sue Cleaver gears up for her much-anticipated return to the cobbles following a stint on the West End stage, she’s sharing a more vulnerable side of herself. The actress has disclosed her past struggles with anxiety and how it once left her petrified of interacting with her admirers.
Sue has candidly revealed her inner turmoil, saying: “For quite a few years, if somebody came up to me in the street, the inside of my stomach muscles would tense up and I’d be thinking: ‘Oh God, don’t come over. Don’t come over. Don’t come over,'” She admits that being approached by fans filled her with dread, leaving her feeling helpless and scared. “It absolutely terrified me when people did. I’d be thinking: ‘I’ve got nothing to offer you. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.’ It was fear, pure and simple. I don’t think I handled it well at all. My confident exterior was paper-thin.”
Delving deeper into her past, Sue shares how her teenage years were marred by self-doubt and vulnerability, which led to her being exploited by older boyfriends. She recounts significant moments from her youth, including losing her virginity to an older boy, running away with a sailor to live in a bedsit at 16, and becoming pregnant at 17 after a relationship with a 35 year old man.
Sue candidly told the Mirror: “I looked for love and validation and acceptance in all the wrong places and my first sexual encounters were with somebody who was four or five years older than me. Nowadays that would just be unthinkable, but it wasn’t at the time. It was no-one’s fault and my parents, who were fantastic, only ever tried to do their best for me, but like a lot of teenagers I was lost. Nowadays there is awareness around mental health, but when I was that age, we had no concept of it and when I look back, I was very unhappy. I’d never want to re-live that time again.”
Now 60, Sue has spent a quarter of a century on Coronation Street and regularly appears on Loose Women. However, as a teenager, she struggled to fit in. She’s sharing her story for the first time ahead of her new memoir A Work in Progress, which is a far cry from the feisty Eileen we see on screen.
She says: “There were boyfriends, one-night stands. I convinced myself that ‘Oh, if I do this, they will love me’. I was always searching for a way to belong. It was tragic really and it breaks my heart to think about it now. There’s so much shame wrapped up in my teenage years. I was just searching and searching for someone to make me feel okay. Because I didn’t know how to be okay myself. So, I became really promiscuous.”
Sue’s life took a turn for the worse during her school years, making poor decisions such as hitchhiking and walking home alone at night. By the age of 15, she was in a steady relationship but left her boyfriend for his older brother, a Navy sailor. At 16, she dropped out of school without any qualifications and moved to Plymouth to live with him in a bedsit.
Feeling isolated and bored, she eventually returned to Manchester to live with her parents. However, after mingling with an older crowd at a local wine bar, she found herself pregnant at 17 by a man twice her age.
“Again, that was somebody who was way older than me and took advantage,” Sue recalls. “Now it’s appalling to think of myself at that young age in that situation with men who should know better.”
Realising she wasn’t ready for motherhood, Sue decided to have an abortion, keeping her ordeal a secret from everyone. She shares: “I was in absolute turmoil. I eventually told my Mum I said: ‘This has happened, I’m going to the hospital on this date, can I have a lift and can we not tell Dad’. I don’t think we ever spoke about it again, but that was my choice. I don’t think we knew how to. My dad never knew. I look back and think I was so resilient. I just got on and I dealt with stuff.”
At the tender age of 17, Sue ventured to Canada to work as a nanny, and upon her return to Britain, she pursued her passion for acting at drama school. It was there that she fell for her first significant other.
Reflecting on the relationship, Sue admits, “He was a really lovely guy but he was a grown-up and although I was 23, emotionally I was still a kid,” adding, “There were lots of problems and I think most of them stemmed from the fact that he was established, with a career and business and what did I bring to the table financially? Absolutely jack s**t. It made me vow, even at that young age, that I would never, ever allow myself not to earn my own money.”
By 26, Sue’s life took a romantic turn when she married actor James Quinn, with whom she welcomed their son Elliott, now 28. Her career flourished as she secured roles in hit series such as ‘Dinnerladies’ and ‘Band of Gold’, before landing the iconic role of Eileen Grimshaw, the feisty cab switchboard operator on ‘Coronation Street‘.
Fast forward a quarter of a century, and she stands as one of the soap’s beloved figures. Despite experiencing heartache with the end of her first marriage, Sue found love again and is currently settled in Manchester with her second husband, lighting technician Brian Owen. By sharing her personal journey, Sue hopes to empower others, especially women, to recognize their worth and overcome insecurities.
She draws parallels between her growth and her book’s title, seeing herself as a work in progress, gradually embodying the confidence of her on-screen persona.
Reflecting on her teenage years, she says: “When I look back at my teenage self, I just want to give her a big hug,” “But it was all part of my journey to becoming who I am now. My God, I learnt resilience and independence. I don’t have all the answers. I am a work in progress. I’m human and humans are naturally messy and will over-think things, but I hope my book will help any woman who is at the stage of their life where they feel invisible and powerless. We’re all doing the best we can, muddling our way through and I just want every woman to see for themselves how much they have to offer.”
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