Corrie’s Claire on beating menopause fears

Carol Vorderman has been amazing, and Vanessa Feltz. These women are great. I find Carol really inspirational because she’s fearless.

“We’ve been friends for years and she’s fantastic and beautiful – she’s a real girl’s girl.”

Claire, who joined Coronation Street as Cassandra Plummer last year, was also supported on Dancing on Ice by her friends on the ITV soap – although she admits to being worried when their first reactions were: “You’re brave.”

She has really gelled with the Corrie cast, especially Maureen Lipman, who she once travelled to the studio with on a day she was not shooting just so she could soak up her expertise. And she confesses that she loves the show so much she was determined not to let some early criticism from trolls drag her down.

Claire and Dancing on Ice partner Colin Grafton were third to be eliminated, after she suffered injuries.

But before that, on signing up for the contest, she sought advice from former Emmerdale and Corrie star Hayley Tamaddon, who won in 2010.

She said: “I messaged her and said, ‘I’m scared,

Hayley’. And she knows me as being a bit feisty. So she gave me this chant, which is, ‘I am fabulous. I am strong. I am fabulous. I am able. I am strong. I am fabulous. I am able.’

“She said, ‘Think it and then say it three times.’

“So I’m on the show, dressed as Cruella de Vil, and I’m thinking that. And it calmed me down a little bit just to be repeating it.

“I thought, ‘Do you know what, I don’t know about the fabulous bit, but I am strong. And I have been practising. I can have a go.’

“You’ve got to believe in yourself, haven’t you?”

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