EMILY’S TEARS FOR TED
Caring Jungle star:
PHOENIX Nights star Ted Robbins has revealed how his niece Emily Atack aided his recovery from an on-stage heart attack.
The actor, who played evil Den Perry, collapsed in front of 25,000 people in Manchester during a live reunion of Peter Kay’s iconic sitcom in 2015.
He was told he was “clinically dead” before two audience members saved his life.
When Ted, 63, came round in hospital, one of the family members waiting for him was I’m A Celebrity star Emily.
Ted recalled how the Inbetweeners actress, who is his sister Kate’s daughter, wept as she comforted him.
“My heart stopped,” Ted said. “I was clinically dead. A paramedic and a doctor in the audience saved my life that night.
“All the family came to see me in hospital. Emily was on the side of the bed and her mother on the other side. Emily had mascara on. And tears were dropping down from her eyes.
“She was crying and said: ‘Uncle Ted, I love you.’ I said: ‘I love you too. Why are you crying?’ She said: ‘I don’t know. Every time I see you I’m always laughing. I’m always cheeky to you. I just love you.’”
Emily and Ted are part of an incredible showbiz dynasty hailing from Liverpool.
The 28-year-old’s mum Kate was an impressionist on Spitting Image and her dad Keith had top 10 hits in the 1970s with the pop act Child. Her cousin Molly Robbins is in Channel 4’s Extreme Cake Makers and sister Martha is a hotshot showbiz agent.
But Emily also spent much of her childhood with her mum’s cousin Sir Paul McCartney and enjoyed family singalongs to his Beatles classics.
Ted, who has now made a full recovery from his heart trauma, said he was terrified about his niece appearing on I’m A Celeb.
“I was really nervous when I heard she was going into the Jungle,” he added.
“I thought she’d just be seen as this blonde bombshell, having showers in bikinis on national TV, all that stuff. I was mortified.
“When you’re an old man like me and your niece is an attractive young woman, you think: ‘Oh, I don’t want to watch Emily in a bikini under the waterfall.’”