Ned Porteous has found love with Lucy Heath.
Ned Porteous and Lucy Heath (c) Instagram
The 'Emmerdale' star - who plays Joe Tate in the ITV soap - has been dating the American actress after meeting her in the United States.
A source told The Sun newspaper: "It's early days but Ned is really enjoying dating Lucy. They have both been in America recently looking for work and grew really close. Ned usually likes to keep his love life private but has been taking Lucy to various events both in London and Los Angeles. They have loads in common with their acting work and make a great looking couple - it's just Ned's fan who are gutted!"
Ned headed to America to try and land some acting roles out there but first, he was looking forward to having some well-earned time off.
He said previously: "I haven't had a holiday for a very long time so I'm desperate first to get out to America. I've got management out there so I want to try my hand with the American casting system and then go on a little holiday. I think, I will turn my phone off, go climbing, go camping, go fishing."
Joe was thought to have met a grisly end during his exit scenes last year - but it has now been revealed that he is still alive. Speaking when the scenes aired, Ned insisted he loved being part of the dramatic storyline.
He shared: "It was tremendously exciting filming all of this last bit to the story as there had been a lot of build up to this point. We knew the course of this storyline for a good deal of weeks beforehand, so we had a lot of time to emotionally prepare for what was going on in the scripts. But I think I personally just focused on the work and concentrated on just producing some really good final scenes. I don't suppose I really had thought too much about the fact I was actually going to be leaving."