Street talking
Tristan Gemmill made his debut as Coronation Street’s Robert Preston in 2015, when the character — who had previously been played by Julian Kay — returned to Weatherfield after more than a decade away to pay his respects to Deirdre Barlow at her funeral.
Robert and Tracy rekindled their relationship — and although the chef initially left out the fact that he was still married to his wife, it wasn’t long before Joni turned up in Weatherfield looking for him.
Her arrival on the cobbles shook things up for Robert, with her confronting Tracy — leading her and Robert to split again — and later demanding that Robert sign everything over to her.
Robert tried to make amends with Tracy — and, although it took a little while, the two of them patched things up and their relationship appeared to go from strength to strength.
However, in December that year, the pair hit a bump in their relationship after Tracy’s ex-fiance Rob Donovan told Robert that she had been visiting him in jail.
Robert, who had been planning to pop the question that holiday season, instead told everyone at the Rovers about the meetings and broke things off with Tracy — and ended up at the Sunset Casino, where he had a one-night stand with Carla Connor.
Tracy, completely unaware of what went on between them, tried to patch things up with Robert — even naming the florist shop after him — and the couple ended up getting back together.
But given the fact that secrets don’t tend to actually stay a secret too long in Weatherfield, it wasn’t too long before Tracy found out the truth of what had happened.
And when she exposed the affair as Carla and Nick Tilsley were tying the knot, Robert called things off once and for all.
Soon after moving back to Weatherfield, Robert began working at Nick’s Bistro as a chef. He became the co-owner of the Bistro — and then in 2017 he became the full owner.
The same year, Robert got a blast from the past when a former associate, Rich Collis, turned up on the cobbles and began to hassle the chef after he turned down a drug deal between the two of them.
A confrontation at the restaurant led to Chesney Brown being stabbed — and Robert setting out to bring Rich to justice for his actions. Ultimately, Rich was arrested in a sting operation after Robert tipped off the officers.
Once he’s released on bail, Rich continues to stir up trouble for Robert and his then-girlfriend Michelle Connor. And when Michelle got kidnapped by an unknown assailant, Rich was the prime suspect and Robert went to confront him — leading to him being arrested and charged for assault.
In late 2017, Robert was diagnosed with testicular cancer after Michelle told him she felt a lump and encouraged him to get checked out. He later underwent surgery.
The following year, the chef became addicted to steroids after he began to use them while training for a charity boxing match.
Michelle and Robert were set to say ‘I do’ in 2018, but their big day was disrupted when Pat Phelan — who had unintentionally shot his own daughter, Nicola — burst into the Bistro looking for help and demanding that Ali, Michelle’s son, save her.
As the sirens began to get closer to the Bistro, the killer took Michelle hostage as he looked for an escape and dragged her into the kitchen — where he came face-to-face with Anna. Michelle took her chance to try and run, but Phelan pushed her away and shot her.
Robert, Ali and Carla rushed into the kitchen after hearing the noise — and quickly provided aid for Michelle.
The pair syaed together but in 2019 they briefly separated. During that time, he began a brief relationship with Vicky Jefferies, who later told him that she was pregnant with his child.
He spent months living a double life, even accidentally proposing to Vicky, before deciding he wanted to spend his life with Michelle — but Michelle soon found out about his two-timing ways and was determined to get her revenge.
She and Vicky conspired against Robert, with Michelle exposing his lies at the altar during their second wedding day.
And while Vicky later gave birth, Robert never met his son as he was accidentally shot by Derek Milligan’s Christmas Day rampage in 2019, and passed away before he could meet little Sonny.