The great lover
In 2012 it was claimed Bill had slept with over 1,000 women and was even reportedly nicknamed “Cock Roache” by his Corrie co-stars.
Bill said TV host Piers Morgan had used Ken Barlow’s colourful relationship history on Coronation Street as a way in to asking him about his personal life during his Life Stories interview.
Bill recalled in his 2018 book Life and Soul: How to Live a Long and Healthy Life: “When Piers continued to press me for numbers and asked if it was 1,000 women, all I said was, ‘It could be. I don’t know’. Well, it went viral – ‘Bill Roache slept with 1,000 women’. And I’d never said I had, but I took it with good humour.”
But while Bill brushed off claims that he was a lothario, his first marriage to actress Anna Cropper, mother of his son Linus and late daughter Vanya, ended in 1974 after he was unfaithful several times.
Bill said he regretted his affairs – one of which was with Elsie Tanner actress Pat Phoenix. “She invited me round to her flat and we had a few drinks, then one thing led to another,” said Bill. At that time she had a reputation and I had a reputation and she felt we should meet, as it were. It just happened.”
Bill added: “There were plenty of girls around. I didn’t have any control over my own sex drive. I didn’t have the strength to control it. Every morning I woke up regretting and hurting. But I certainly wasn’t Ken, going from one marriage to the next.”
Bill did get married again, to Sara McEwan Mottram in 1978. He says he was always faithful to Sara, who died suddenly at their home in February 2009 when she was 58. Bill said Sara’s death was a deep shock. He added: “We used to joke that in my dotage she’d be pushing me round in a wheelchair, and I never imagined she’d go before me.”
His last public relationship was with TV weathergirl Emma Jesson, 36 years his junior.
They split in 2012, with Emma stating that they went their separate ways as the actor’s “spiritual path” was becoming more of a priority.
Bill is now celibate, saying: “I don’t need a sexual relationship any more. Everything works, but I don’t have that need for sex I used to have.”