Michelle Keegan admits huge fear after Coronation Street exit ‘ripped away’ her security

Calli Kitson

Published January 8, 2024 8:51am Updated January 9, 2024 3:49pm

Michelle Keegan on the This Morning sofa — The actress became a household name thanks to her role in Corrie (Picture: ITV/Shutterstock)

Actress and former Coronation Street star Michelle Keegan has been speaking about how much her life changed after leaving the ITV soap, admitting it felt like her sense of security had been ‘ripped away’.

Michelle, who played Tina McIntyre in Corrie, featured in the most recent episode of The Graham Norton Show (January 5) to discuss her hit Netflix drama Fool Me Once, and her acting journey.

The actress left the soap back in 2014 after her character was killed by Rob Donovan, father of newcomer Bobby (Jack Carroll).

Highlighting the journey that came afterwards, Michelle spoke to Graham about how the departure made her work even harder.

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‘For me, it was a massive learning platform’, she said.

‘I took a long, long time to decide to leave – it was very hard. And then when they told me they were killing off my character and there was no going back, I thought I would never work again. My security was ripped away, which made me push forward and work harder.’

Fool Me once Michelle Keegan — Michelle stars alongside Joanna Lumley in the drama (Picture: Netflix/Vishal Sharma)

Michelle Keegan as her Coronation Street character Tina McIntyre — Tina died in 2014 when she was murdered by Rob Donovan (Picture: ITV)

Michelle’s Netflix show Fool Me Once follows Maya Stern, who investigates the death of her husband Joe – who is then spotted on the nanny cam in their house.

‘It’s madness that it’s number one all over the world’, Michelle said, reacting to the huge success so far.

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‘I was always a huge fan of Harlan Coben books, so when I got the call, it was “yes, absolutely”, and I grabbed it with both hands.’

Elsewhere, Michelle is also best known for her role as Erin Croft in the Sky series Brassic as well as Georgie Lane in BBC One’s Our Girl, which follows the adventures of army squad 2 Section.