Will Mellor has revealed he was once shockingly attacked by an angry soap fan. The star, who has appeared in Coronation Street in recent times, got an early start on fellow soap Brookside.
In it, he played the villainous Paul Howard, who, in one storyline, got fellow character Leanne Powell pregnant before leaving her. After that, she got an abortion.
Now, Will has revealed that his Brookside character’s storyline led one fan to take things out violently on him in the street.
Joseph Scanlon//ITV
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“Well I’m going to the pub one day, going to meet my mates,” he recalled on The Lewis Nicholls Show. “There’s a cut through from my estate to where the pub is and as I’m walking through, there’s an old lady walking towards me.
“And she slapped me so hard across the face. I went, ‘what are you doing?’ She went, ‘you left that girl pregnant, you’ve left her, you’re a disgrace to your family, you should be ashamed of yourself’.
“I went, ‘it’s not real you f*****g idiot’, I was fuming. My ear was ringing,” Will continued, revealing that he then told his friends about what had just happened when he arrived.
He went on to share: “People believe it, that was my first realisation that people believe what they watch on television, they believe these characters.”
Channel 4
As well as Brookside and Corrie – where he plays Harvey Gaskell – Will has also appeared in Hollyoaks, EastEnders and Casualty alongside roles in shows such as Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Broadchurch, Line of Duty, A Woman of Substance and Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Will also has a longstanding friendship with Two Pints co-star Ralf Little, with the pair sharing a podcast as well as appearing on TV series Will & Ralf Should Know Better together.
Opening up about their bond in 2024, he told Radio Times: “I am much more open than he is, and that’s why I think our friendship works. Because we’re so different as people, and that’s why the podcast [Two Pints with Will and Ralf] works.”
Coronation Street airs on weeknights at 8.30pm on ITV1 and streams on ITVX.
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