Kym Marsh had a teenage crush on Simon Gregson.
Kym Marsh
The former 'Coronation Street' star - who joined the soap as Michelle Connor in 2006 - had a poster of the actor on her bedroom wall during her younger years, and the Steve McDonald star later found it "hilarious" when Kym went onto become his on-screen wife.
She told The Sun newspaper: "I told Simon when I started that when I was younger I had a poster of him on my bedroom wall.
“It was very strange. I remember seeing him years ago when I was signed to an independent record label in Manchester.
“I was about 14 or 15 and there was this big gig going on, Dannii Minogue was playing, and Chesney Hawkes, that’s how long ago it is.
“And I couldn’t believe the McDonald twins from Corrie were there. I remember seeing him and thinking, ‘Oh my god, he is so gorgeous, he’s so handsome.' And then, years down the line, there I am as his girlfriend on 'Corrie'. He thought it was hilarious.”
In the end, the pair ended up working together for years on the cobbles, until Kym's exit in 2019.
The 44-year-old actress loved working with Simon throughout her 'Corrie' run, and praised his comic timing.
She added: "He’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. It’s just the way he looks at you.
"He laughs with his eyes, and he does the Steve McDonald eye roll, which cracks me up.”
Kym also recalled one painful moment she had to slap him "really hard" on set, with just a director there, rather than a stunt coordinator - and they had to repeatedly practise the scene.
She said: "So I slapped him on the face, hard, and she started to say, ‘No, not like that, like this’, and she hit him really hard on the neck.
"Then I did it again, and she kept coming back and slapping him, while he stood there taking it from us both, again and again.
“He was looking at me with a face that said, ‘If you two hit me once more, I’m going to lose it’ - and after a while he had to ask us to stop."
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