Not long ago, Helen Flanagan’s daughter Delilah asked her whether she was planning to get the tattoo she sports of her daddy’s name removed, now that they’d broken up. ‘I said of course not, because he is a big part of Mummy’s story,’ Helen recalls. ‘I told her I loved her dad very much.’
Footballer Scott Sinclair certainly was – and remains – a huge part of 34-year-old Helen’s life: the couple got together when she was 18, had three children – Matilda, nine, Delilah, six, and three-year-old Charlie – and got engaged in 2018.
Then, in June 2022, after 13 years together, actor and influencer Helen revealed they had split up, a devastating turn of events that had an impact which reverberated long after the initial shock: earlier this year and struggling to cope with her emotions, she also had a frightening reaction to her ADHD medication that plunged her into psychosis.
This month Helen will appear in Celebs Go Dating, the cult show in which stars are matchmade with members of the public
‘I really wasn’t very well,’ she recalls now. ‘Basically I was struggling with my mental health around December and January, so I took my medication to try to make me feel better, and then unfortunately it just made things worse.’
It took weeks for ex-Coronation Street star Helen to recover (she says that while she can ‘remember bits’ of that dark time, she prefers not to), during which she was forced to withdraw from a touring production of Cluedo that she’d hoped would mark a return to the dramatic spotlight. Instead, she’ll be making her step back into the public eye in quite a different role – and one that places a firm line under her relationship: this month Helen will appear in Celebs Go Dating, the cult show in which stars including Married At First Sight’s EllaMorgan and Love Island’s Chris Taylor are matchmade with members of the public.
Now in its 13th series, the show is a much-loved fixture in the TV calendar, but Helen is something of a novel contestant, given that until her split from Scott she had never been on a date before and had barely ‘dipped her toe’ in the game before signing up.
‘I did go on a few dates and I’ve had a few experiences, put it that way,’ she says of her recent ventures onto the scene. ‘But filming this was different, really fun, and I met some lovely people. I’ve really bonded with Ella and Chris as well.’
With the show yet to broadcast, she’s unable to give much away in terms of whether Cupid’s arrow struck, although not long after we meet the show’s dating expert Anna Williamson teasingly revealed that Helen had nearly been thrown out of the show’s dating agency for ‘breaking the rules’ and was also responsible for ‘the biggest cliffhanger pivot of a storyline’ that contestants had ever had in Celebs Go Dating history.
Helen with her ex Scott Sinclair and their children Matilda, Charlie and Delilah
All this is ahead of her when we meet – she’s mid-filming, and is less concerned about finding love than how she might come across to the viewing public. ‘I don’t hold back, I’m honest in the way I speak about things in my life,’ she says. ‘I’ve tried to respect other people’s feelings, but I do worry. I can’t help but be anything other than myself – I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.’
She looks genuinely worried, a sign of the vulnerability that underpins much of our interview. While she looks fabulous, and is determinedly upbeat, she confides that her mental health remains fragile and at one point breaks down when she talks about being alone in the family home in Bolton bought for her by Scott, the former Chelsea and Celtic footballer who now plays for Bristol Rovers.
‘He bought me that house as a surprise,’ she says. ‘It was the house I always wanted around where I grew up, and Charlie was only a baby, so for a long time when Scott left I felt really sad in the house a lot of the time.’ At this point tears are streaming down her face. ‘Especially when he’d take the children at the weekend, I couldn’t be at home on my own without the kids. I remember being so proud of myself when I stayed in the house on my own without my children for the weekend.’
It’s a reminder that, today, many emotions from the break-up remain close to the surface. ‘Sometimes I’ll be great for ages, like I felt quite good for the last few months, and then I do struggle, like a week ago,’ she says. ‘It’s up and down. I think I have everything under the sun – OCD, ADHD – but I think it’s important to talk about it, and if it makes people feel less on their own then that’s great. I get people coming up to me and saying thank you and that makes it worth it.’
‘I’m all for women embracing their bodies and feeling good,’ says Helen
Helen modelling lingerie for Ann Summers in January. ‘I’m very much a free spirit and just like to be myself,’ she says
It’s definitely a new type of role for a girl who remains best known to many for playing troubled Rosie Webster in Coronation Street from 2000 to 2012 – a part she reprised in 2017 before going on maternity leave and not returning. She was ten when she joined the show, and effectively grew up on set. ‘Half the time I was at school, half on set,’ she recalls. ‘I was so lucky and I have such amazing memories of being on set and the excitement of that.’
She was nominated for a few soap awards, but after getting together with Scott motherhood quickly followed, with Matilda born when she was 24. ‘I think it’s a football thing,’ she says of her relative youth at the time. ‘I think girls in football start younger because you’re so lucky that your partner’s got a good job.’
Either way, with three children in seven years, Helen’s work was subsequently largely confined to reality shows and social media campaigns, including modelling lingerie for Ann Summers via some fairly eye-popping – and in some quarters eyebrow-raising – photos. ‘I’m all for women embracing their bodies and feeling good,’ says Helen defiantly about those undeniably raunchy images. ‘I get a bit of stick for it on social media, but so what? I’m very much a free spirit and just like to be myself.’
Even so, you sense that undertaking a serious new theatrical role was important to her – she says she feels most at home in front of a camera or on stage – which made the fact she had to pull out of the Cluedo tour all the more devastating.
Today she confides that even before her terrifying psychotic episode she’d been struggling: post break-up she had shut down a lot of her emotions, going into what she calls ‘survival mode’, only to plunge into the abyss when she had to spend Christmas Day without her children as they were having the day with Scott.
She started on medication for ADHD to level herself out, only to suffer a terrible reaction that caused her behaviour to deteriorate so dramatically that her nanny – who offers an extra pair of hands when needed – had to contact Helen’s parents to alert them that something was wrong. Psychosis is described as ‘when you perceive or interpret reality in a different way from people around you’, and Helen has said she was ‘seeing things, I felt like I was in danger all the time’.
It took nearly three months for her to fully recover, and the Cluedo role was taken by Strictly winner Ellie Leach. ‘I was gutted because I really wanted to do it, but I just wasn’t in the right place… I couldn’t work for two and a half months basically,’ she says. ‘I was so upset about it, devastated, but I had to prioritise feeling better, for me and for the kids.’
Therapy healed, as did exercise, eating well, and decluttering her house. ‘I got everything organised,’ she laughs. ‘Although not for long with three feral children.’
She seems – and insists she is – stronger now, although she admits she’s still coping with the aftermath of a break-up that she describes as more akin to a divorce. ‘I was with him for 13 years, we were engaged, we’ve had three young children together, so I don’t see it as just a break-up,’ she says. ‘I’ve had to accept the fact that it’s going to be really messy, and give myself a bit of a break while I find my way.’
What went wrong? ‘I really, really loved my ex when I was younger, but three kids can put a lot of pressure on,’ she says candidly. ‘And then I had my acting career and he had his football career, and then we did a massive house move as well when Charlie was about two months old which we probably shouldn’t have done. I had post-natal depression as well. There were just too many things going on. It’s incredibly sad. I still love him to bits, but we just don’t like each other at the moment, although I’m sure that will change in time.’
Helen remains best known to many for playing troubled Rosie Webster in Coronation Street
It means that currently the pair largely communicate through their respective parents. ‘I know it’s not very mature, and I really do hope it sorts itself out,’ she says. ‘But what we don’t do is argue in front of the children, so we make sure they don’t see any drama. I’d never speak badly about their father in front of them, it’s about the kids and them being happy.’
It helps that she has a close relationship with Scott’s mother, with whom she recently took a holiday with the children. ‘It’s funny sometimes, because I’ll ring her and forget that he’s her son, because I’ll have a bitch about him,’ she laughs. ‘But I get on really well with her, and she’s a great nana to the kids.’
For all the ongoing tension with her ex – she admits candidly that they ‘p*** each other off’ – they also managed to share a laugh when Helen came across his profile on a dating app. ‘We did have a giggle,’ she admits. She snorts with laughter as she remembers creating her own profile with her nan. ‘The only picture I could find that I liked of myself was when I was pregnant, so we just zoomed in on my face and we couldn’t stop laughing,’ she recalls. ‘I found the whole thing hilarious because obviously I’d never dated before and seeing all these men on this app made me laugh so much.’
As we’ve seen, no clues here about whether she can take herself off that dating app after being matchmade on TV, although Helen will say she’s looking for a Mr Right, not least to fulfil her dream of walking down the aisle. ‘I’m a romantic, I do want a big wedding one day,’ she says. ‘I’ve wanted that since I was young. But when you have a relationship that doesn’t work out it makes you cautious. So I would like that, but it would have to be with the right person.’
Nor has she ruled out another baby. ‘My mum will probably read this and go, “Oh my God!” But I love babies, I’m always broody,’ she grins.
For now, though, her three children are keeping her busy, and Helen admits she thrives on the chaos. ‘I’m not the best on my own and I do get my friends to stay over a lot as I struggle in my own company,’ she says. ‘Then when I’ve got the kids, which I do 90 per cent of the time, it can be hard to juggle everything. But I think you’ve got to realise that nothing’s going to be perfect. All you can do is just try your best and be true to yourself.’
- Celebs Go Dating will air Monday to Thursday at 9pm for five weeks from 19 August on E4