‘I went from Coronation Street to being a politician and it wrecked my marriage’

A former Coronation Street star who became the Labour Mayor of West Yorkshire has revealed that politics have wrecked her marriage. Tracy Brabin, 63, who became MP for Batley and Spen in 2016 following the murder of Jo Cox, has confirmed that her marriage to TV director Richard Platt – who she has been with for 30 years and married in 2005 – is over.

A Mayor since 2021, she said: “It was very difficult to be married to me, because I became a different person, because I was obsessed with politics shows, with my job, serving my community and to be fair, I parked the marriage. Whilst my husband tried to fit in and tried to go along with it, I think at the end of the day I was too absent.”

Making her revelations to Loose Women’s Kaye Adams on her How to be 60 podcast, she insisted her marriage was not a failure. She said: “We were together for 30 years. We had a wonderful life of marriage and raised two amazing daughters. But I’m in a different phase now.

“There’s an enormous strength to being on your own by choice that I am really enjoying and I am now living without guilt – because I was always perennially guilty that I wasn’t spending time at home. When somebody is ‘where are you? Why aren’t you home? Oh my God, that thing we organised we’re now having to cancel.’”

Tracy, who played feisty single mum Tricia Armstrong in Corrie from 1994-97, made her TV debut in 1989 as clumsy waitress Sandra Pickersgill, opposite David Jason, in A Bit of a Do. She continued to act until 2014, combining the job with writing for shows, including Heartbeat and Hollyoaks.

But after campaigning for Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox, she was selected to stand for the seat in 2016, following her tragic murder. She became the inaugural Mayor of West Yorkshire in 2021 and was re-elected earlier this year, but admitted that her family life had “exploded” after her mid-life career change.

“It meant that my family life was very different,” she said. “When I wasn’t acting, I was obviously at home. I was around more, we made jam, all of those lovely things. You’re more available, but then I wasn’t. For three days a week I was in Batley and I always had a suitcase that was never unpacked. I was out late for votes. Our family life exploded to some degree. My girls were old enough, but it was very hard on my husband and we have subsequently separated.”

Meeting when they were both actors, the couple have two daughters Lois, 31, and Nancy, 27. Richard, 71, is now an award-winning TV director. Explaining that their break up is amicable, Tracy added: “It’s ok to change. As we have at least three careers in our life, I don’t think it’s unacceptable to think maybe you will have three big relationships in your life that fit that person in that moment.

“It’s ok and you don’t have to have dramas, meltdowns; you can support each other to the next phase of your life. My wedding day was one of the best days in my life and I think to have a marriage of 30 years is a huge success. I would challenge anybody that said there’s any whiff of failure about this, because there isn’t.

“We grew to be different and the biggest success is that we both acknowledged that and that we didn’t feel that what we have to do is stick together, because that’s all we’ve got. The success is that grown-up approach, where you just think – you have a right to be happy. I’m loving this job so much and I’m loving the new-found freedom.

“Lots of friends have said, with a shake of the head ‘oh, you’re so brave at your age.’ But you are a long time dead. You have got to take happiness where you can find it and you also have to release the people who are with you that are unhappy, to find happiness, rather than be in something that’s miserable.”

Tracy, who was 55 when she entered the House of Commons, speaks fondly of Jo Cox, the MP she succeeded, after she was shot and stabbed in the street, close to where she had been due to hold a constituency surgery. Tracy said: “She was such an amazing woman and such an amazing member of Parliament and I was brand new and knew nothing.

“It was an enormous amount of pressure to be in her shoes and honestly, if I had a pound for everyone that said – big shoes to fill – I would be a millionaire. It was very difficult. Thank God I had been an actor, because fake it ‘til you make it. I just hadn’t a clue. But you learn on the job.”

Like many female MPs, she has received abuse and death threats. “Sometimes the way to push back against that abuse is to just take the mick, because you would not be attacking me if you had a rich and a fulfilling life,” she said. “Whilst of course many death threats are very serious and very troubling, I do think, while it’s irritating, trying not to take it too seriously is one of the ways that I handle it.”

When approached by The Mirror, a spokesperson said neither Tracy nor Richard wished to comment further.

Kaye Adams: How to be 60 is available on all podcast providers