I’ll keep mum on the baby rumours
KEEGAN
EVER since Coronation Street star Michelle Keegan married reality star Mark Wright five years ago, there has been baby talk. As well as some being obsessed with the showbiz couple – and the state of their marriage – there is a continuing interest in why they have no children.
It has long frustrated the Stockport actress, who feels the question wouldn’t be asked of a man and points out that outsiders don’t know the truth of something so private.
Michelle, 33 said: “A few years ago it didn’t bother me and I answered the question, but now I think I don’t need to answer that because nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors.
“I remember when I finished Our Girl, people were like, ‘Is it because you’re going off to have a baby?’
“I know for a fact if Mark finished a job, nobody would ask him if he was going to have a baby. It’s not fair. It does make me feel frustrated.”
Michelle was in Corrie playing Tina McIntyre when she met the TOWIE stand-out star but she quit the Street in 2014 when her character died so there was no way of going back if her career didn’t go to plan.
But it has – winning critical acclaim for Ordinary Lies, taking over as the lead in Our Girl as Lance Corporal Georgie Lane, Tina and Bobby and then in two series of Sky One’s Brassic, with another announced.
Her success, especially in Our Girl, had tongues wagging again, especially when she was working away for threeand-a-half months in South Africa and Mark, 33, living in the US after he became a presenter on entertainment show Extra and then also working in South Africa last year while presenting The Bachelor UK.
Rumours swirled that all was not well in the marriage but Michelle is trying to not let it bother her.
She said: “If you go away for work it’s seen as a negative and not a positive. I just don’t understand that and find it hard.
“You’re trying to carve yourself a career and people say you shouldn’t be doing it because it impacts your marriage. It’s ridiculous.”
Before lockdown, Michelle quit Our Girl and Mark left his job in the US to focus on his Heart radio show.
The pandemic gave the couple the chance to spend some proper time together at their £2million, six-bedroom house in Chigwell, Essex.
Michelle said: “It’s been nice because we’ve both been working from home. Normally we could be out all day or I have to go to Manchester (to film Brassic) or Mark is in London.
“I’m taking my dogs for daily walks, I’ve been doing a jigsaw a week and taken up cycling on a road bike. We go three times a week and do 11 miles.”
It also led to the development of Michelle as a writer.
She said: “I’m writing two things. I’ve never had the time to sit down, write and research and I’m really enjoying the process.
“It’s a comedy drama and a mini-series drama. I had the idea for one of them a few years ago and this time has helped me get my ideas down on paper.
“I’ve had meetings with production companies on Zoom. Hopefully it’s something that we can get off the ground.”
Michelle has been in the public eye since joining Corrie in 2008, aged 21.
In those six years she became one of the UK’s biggest stars, winning best soap actress twice at the TV Choice Awards and was nominated for her acting at the National Television Awards.
Fame hasn’t been easy to deal with at times.
She admitted: “It was really daunting. It happens very quickly on a soap because you’re in people’s living
Nobody would ask him if he was going to have a baby
MICHELLE KEEGAN ON QUESTIONS ABOUT HER PRIVATE LIFE
rooms five times a week, so people start believing they know you.
“Everyone had their own opinions – how you act, how your hair looks, what you’re wearing, how you physically look…
“Growing up in that was very hard and I let a lot of negative comments get to me.
“There’s an inner confidence now. I don’t let negative comments affect me the way that they did 12 years ago.”
Before she was married to Mark she was crowned FHM’s Sexiest
Woman and was pictured in her pants and a white vest top.
She said: “It wasn’t something that I necessarily really wanted to do. I remember feeling very shy because I was really young. “But I thought it came as part of being on TV. Now that I’m older, I realise that it is OK to say no to something that you don’t feel 100 per cent happy with.”
Michelle is happy to look back and offer advice to her younger self.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan, she said: “It’s OK to say no and go with your instinct. I always wanted to please people but I think if something doesn’t feel right, just say no.
“I am still that ‘yes’ person as I don’t like upsetting anyone. But I feel like I am getting stronger. That comes with age.”
● Read the full interview in the August issue of Cosmopolitan, on sale tomorrow.