A 9-0 win, but don’t tell Gary!
linked to leaving her Corrie “family” after six years. Katie said: “We’re all close. I’m going to miss everyone. It’s a life change.”
The role has also had an effect on Katie’s physical health. She piled on a stone eating junk food and takeaways.
She said: “The hours I worked and the emotion involved in Sinead dying meant I was just grabbing food and not really thinking about good nutrition.”
Katie said the most devastating scenes showed Sinead recording a final “goodbye”
message to son Bertie. “The tears I shed then were real,” she said. “I did it in one big take. I imagined I really was Sinead and thought about how she would really feel.
“I did that a lot with the role and I think that’s why it impacted me so much.”
She revealed her co-stars Rob Mallard, who plays her husband Daniel, and Lisa George, who plays her aunt Beth, were also weepy in the last days of filming. She said: “We are really close friends. I think it was quite upsetting for them because it was not just Sinead’s last days, but I was leaving too. It was like someone was actually dying.”
She added: “This is my first experience of mental health issues and it’s not been pleasant. My advice to anyone having problems is to get help as soon as you can. Nobody should be ashamed to say they are struggling.”
Katie now hopes Sinead’s plight will bring back the “Jade Goody effect”, which saw a huge surge in the number of young women going for smears after the diagnosis and death of the reality TV star.
Katie said: “I’ve had emails from young women thanking me because they were too scared to get a smear until they watched Sinead’s battle.
“Nurses have also sent me messages saying they have seen an increase in smear tests. It makes me so proud.”
GARY Lineker missed watching his beloved Leicester City win 9-0 as he was too busy slamming Brexit.
The TV pundit attended an annual talk on the other side of the country.
During the event, he revealed that he was proRemain and told the audience: “Nobody really thought this through.
“For me, it’s just a massive shame for our country. It’s self-harm. Divided our country, over what?”
Lineker’s attendance at the event meant he missed watching his team secure the biggest-ever away win in an English topflight league, against Southampton.
He posted on Twitter: “If only I’d have known it was going to be 9-0” alongside an embarrassed emoji.
During the lecture in South Shields, Tyneside, hosted by the town’s former MP David Miliband, the former striker explained that he wanted to have open conversations with people about their political views.
He said that some Brexitsupporting friends and colleagues “don’t have an answer” when he discusses certain issues with them, including how leaving the EU could affect free movement for football players.