In the first of two exclusive excerpts from her new autobiography, Head & Heart, HELEN FLANAGAN reveals the truth about her high-profile relationship breakdowns, psychotic episodes and those throuple rumours…
I haven’t slept. How can I sleep when someone is trying to kill me? How can I rest when I’m being watched, filmed, hunted down, possibly even drugged?
The house isn’t safe – I don’t care what the police said last night when they came round, responding to my desperate 999 calls. Three times they turned up and told me there was nobody there. But I know for a fact there were men outside, trying to get me.
‘I can see you, you f***ing bastards,’ I’d yelled at the men prowling outside. ‘Don’t you dare come any closer!’
And now this morning my life is in danger. I go downstairs and check the locks again. My whole body is tense, my mind racing. I have to stay on high alert – the second I let my guard down, they’ll pounce and it’ll be game over.
I have to get the children ready for school. We’re already late. I’m wired and running on adrenaline while trying to butter toast, pour out cereal, fill up water bottles and find three pairs of shoes.
My brain is screaming that something horrific is about to happen. But I can’t let the children know anything is amiss, so I fix a smile on my face as if nothing is wrong.
Meanwhile those bastards outside are watching. Waiting. I have no idea if I’m even going to make it through the day alive.
That was two years ago. The night when the world as I knew it collapsed. January 8, 2024.
For several days I’d felt a loosening of my grip on reality, a growing sense of paranoia and an inability to stay on top of the daily routine.
I’d got it into my head that one of my neighbours was trying to kill me. I’d concocted this ludicrous story that he was a drug smuggler, working with my ex-fiancé, the former Manchester City, Chelsea and Aston Villa footballer Scott Sinclair.
I know now that I was in a psychosis, a highly disturbed mental state where you lose contact with what’s real. Thoughts become distorted, disjointed and confused and the sufferer can become severely suspicious of other people or convinced of things which don’t match up with reality.
Helen Flanagan feels certain that her relationship with world champion boxer David Haye was a contributory factor to her breakdown
Helen saw nothing wrong in starting the ‘open’ relationship with David (jumper by Jaki, bangle by Ruddock, rings, Helen’s own)
Helen and David Haye met in series 12 of I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! in 2012
Of course there were no men outside my house, and nobody was trying to kill me. But for me, at that point in my life, it was all too horrifically real.
And I’m as certain as I can be that my relationship with the world champion boxer David Haye, which had ended just weeks before, was a contributory factor to my breakdown.
I’d first met David on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! in 2012. He was supportive and we’d got on well.
Our paths didn’t cross again for a decade until I bumped into him at an awards ceremony in the autumn of 2022. We messaged online a couple of times and he asked me for my WhatsApp.
But I didn’t respond. Scott and I had only recently split up after 13 years together, and I still felt loyal to him. When I eventually sent David a message near Christmas, he didn’t reply, and I assumed that was that.
Then in January 2023 came news about David’s ‘throuple’ situation, which meant that he and his long-term model girlfriend Sian Osborne were openly navigating a polyamorous relationship. It was all over the media.
Mentally, I put David away in a little box marked: Don’t even go there.
And then out of the blue, he got in touch. He’d seen some pictures of a fashion shoot I’d done for Ann Summers. ‘Wow, you look so hot,’ he said.
I asked if he still had a girlfriend. He said he did, but that it was an open relationship.
For me, that was a no-no – I would never do anything to hurt another girl. But he persisted, asking whether I’d found anyone else since Scott. I told him I hadn’t.
‘You’re a classy queen,’ he replied.
Over the next few weeks I mulled it over. I was always such a good girl. I thought. I did everything right, played by the rules. If I fancied this guy, why shouldn’t I have a night with him and be done with it?
Sian Osborne and David Haye announced in early 2023 that they were navigating a polyamorous relationship
Out of the blue, David got in touch with Helen. He’d seen some pictures of a fashion shoot she’d done for Ann Summers. ‘Wow, you look so hot,’ he said
Helen reveals the truths about many aspects of her life in Head & Heart (posing in a top by Free People, skirt by The Fold and earrings and rings by Ruddock)
He had an open relationship, she would know about it, so how would I be doing anything wrong? We arranged to meet at a hotel in London, me thinking I’d get him out of my system after one meeting. That’s not quite how it worked out.
When David knocked on my hotel room door, I answered it wearing a cute little blue pyjama set. We had a drink and started to talk.
He was charming and full of compliments and eventually we went to bed together. We had an amazing night. He’d made me feel like I was the most beautiful girl in the world.
Over the next couple of months, we met up in that same hotel several times. And I’ll admit, I started getting feelings for him early on. Very real feelings.
But I knew there was never any chance of us being exclusive. I was also adamant that I wasn’t going to join the throuple, despite his best efforts. He’d frequently ask if I would meet Sian, but I always said I didn’t feel comfortable with that idea. I’m not a prude, but I’ve never been into that.
In the middle of May, David told me he’d got tickets for a boxing match at Wembley and a party afterwards. ‘It’ll be fun,’ he said. ‘Sian is really excited to meet you.’
Eek. I didn’t know she’d be there. I thought it was quite unbelievable that she was looking forward to it, but I put any doubts to one side because I was so mad on David.
The night of the fight, I wore a sexy little corseted leather dress and headed to the arena. David was ringside with Sian and his daughter. After the fight, Sian approached me and honestly, she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
Although I felt nervous, she was nice to me and everything seemed friendly. Then David joined us and said to Sian, ‘She’s hot, isn’t she?’, which was so cringe, and made me want the ground to swallow me whole.
I think David’s plan had possibly been to get me and Sian involved in a threesome that night, but when I made it clear that wasn’t going to happen, he told her that he was ‘just going to take Helen home’.
We went back to my hotel and spent the night together, but I felt terrible the next day. I was guilty about Sian, but also envious. She was the one he was devoted to. I was just the bit on the side.
Meanwhile there were a few early warning signs that there was another side to David. He was prone to jealousy, and made it clear he didn’t want me to see or speak to any other men. He’d tell me that he wanted me just to himself.
I thought I was in love with him, but some of the things he said made me feel uneasy and I knew that whatever we had between us needed to stop.
About two months into our relationship, we met at our usual hotel and I told him how I felt. ‘I really appreciate you being here for me, David, and I think a lot of you, but you’ve got a girlfriend and this isn’t going to work for me. I want to be free to date other people and see who might be out there for me.’
Helen with her ex-fiancé, footballer Scott Sinclair, in 2018
Helen at home with the children after her split from Sinclair
I thought I’d explained the situation really well and that he would say something like, ‘We’ve had a nice time together, I think you’re a great girl and I understand why you feel that way.’
But what I said went down really badly. I don’t think David is used to women saying no to him. He was seething.
‘I expect perfection from you,’ he said. ‘Why are you speaking to me like this? Did you speak to Scott like this? No wonder he left you. You do not speak to me in this way.’
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t equate the man who had been so kind, romantic and loving with the one who was so angry with me now.
I hadn’t wanted it to end like this. I was devastated that he seemed to hate me so much. I can see now that he had me completely under his control because, rather than running for the hills, I found myself longing to get back with him.
So, after a couple of weeks when David started messaging me saying that he missed me, I was ecstatic. After that, he reeled me in again. Everything about my mood was linked to David. It was like he controlled all my emotions.
I once posted a TikTok about dating experiences as a single mum, and he went ballistic. I was so under the thumb that I took the video down, apologised for upsetting him and promised to check with him before I posted anything else.
When I write all this down now, it seems mad that I went along with it. But I always felt like I could be the girl who was able to change him. I believed for a while that he might leave Sian for me. He even started talking about wanting a baby together.
I could feel my mental health sinking because David and our relationship utterly consumed me.
Eventually, I said I thought we should have some space because I could sense this wasn’t good for me right now. But he had such a hold over me that within about three days I sent a message saying how much I missed him. He called me, and I thought he was going to tell me he missed me too.
But instead, he unleashed his rage down the phone.
‘Do you think this is funny? Do you think you can f***ing message me after you won’t speak to me? Who do you think you are?
‘You’ve been sh**ging someone else’s boyfriend for the last six months. How do you think that’s made Sian feel? What kind of woman are you?’
Helen says her relationship with David ‘utterly consumed me’ (top, cardigan and trousers by With Nothing Underneath; shoes by Charles & Keith: ring, left hand by Sif Jakobs Jewellery; ring, right hand, Helen’s own)
This is after he’d told me the whole time that Sian was completely cool with it because they had an open relationship. I was shattered.
It was October and David’s birthday was coming up, so I bought him a trinity bracelet from Cartier and left it with the concierge at the hotel he stays in.
As I was driving home, he called me. ‘Babe, I really can’t accept what you’ve given me. I can’t take it. All I want from you is your body – that’s enough for me.’
This was the man who had rung me nearly every day for seven months and who claimed to want a baby with me. Now he was telling me I was only good for one thing, and he didn’t want the birthday present I’d bought for him. Did I mean anything to him?
In that moment, it was like I finally saw our relationship for what it was. I told him I didn’t want to speak to him again. I was in love with him, and breaking away wasn’t going to be easy, but I knew I had to cut contact if I was to have any chance of finding peace and rebuilding my sense of self.
‘I will feel strong again, but I need space,’ I wrote to him. ‘You trigger me. You said you loved me, but you don’t. I need to look after myself for my babies who need their mum.’
In December he messaged to say he hoped I had a good Christmas.
‘I hope you have a s*** Christmas, David,’ was my reply.
I’ve never spoken to him since. But even though he was no longer in my life, shaking him out of my system has been a process.
Finishing with him was a bit like escaping a burning building – I’d made it out alive, but the toxic smoke lingered in my lungs.
A breakdown was just around the corner. I was hurtling towards disaster – and there was nothing I could do about it.
The truth is, I’ve struggled with my mental health for years. Thanks to the knowledge I have now, I know the roots started to take hold in early childhood, even before I joined the cast of Coronation Street in 1999 as Rosie Webster, Kevin and Sally’s daughter, at the age of nine.
As a young kid growing up in Bolton, I knew something felt different. Anxiety, obsessive thoughts and spirals of emotion which I couldn’t explain or control… they were there all along, I just didn’t have the words for any of it.
It’s taken literally decades to unpick everything, to truly understand what makes me tick and to learn how to be kinder to myself.
I realise now that those childhood fears were the very early signs of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, a mental health condition characterised by unwanted, intrusive thoughts which can send you crackers – some of them seriously dark.
Although I want to be as honest as I can here about how devastating this condition has been for me personally, a lot of my OCD-driven thoughts are far too disturbing to share publicly. It’s a terrible, scary place to be and very isolating too, because it feels impossible to tell anyone what’s going on inside your head – it’s too shameful to say out loud and you think there’s no way anyone would understand.
The saddest, sickest points of my life have been as a result of OCD and there have been times when I’ve felt like I was literally going mad. In 2015, after the birth of my first baby, this evil condition came back into my life with such a vengeance that it brought me to the Priory, and even to thoughts of suicide.
Scott and I had been on cloud nine when our beautiful daughter Matilda was born and I’d thrown myself headfirst into motherhood. I found joy in the simplest of things: pushing the pram around the streets, walks in the park, popping to the supermarket with Matilda in the baby carrier.
I loved the fact that after 13 years on Coronation Street and other TV shows, I was finally under the radar and out of the public eye. I was so happy with my little girl in my arms, doing normal, everyday things.
Helen was nine years old when she started playing Rosie Webster in Coronation Street
With her on-screen parents were Michael Le Vell (Kevin) and Sally Dynevor (Sally)
But as the weeks went on, my joy began to be blighted by the return of the intrusive thoughts which had troubled me off and on since childhood. Suddenly, they were threatening to shatter my baby bubble.
They kind of crept up on me at first, starting with a bit of fretting over whether Matilda had taken enough milk but then spiralling into completely irrational scenarios that she was going to die because I’d starved her.
I started to obsess about germs and didn’t want other people touching Matilda in case they passed something on. I didn’t trust anyone else with my baby, sometimes not even Scott.
I didn’t even like burping her because I thought it would hurt her. My thoughts would constantly tell me I had harmed my baby and, of course, I hadn’t – I would never have hurt a hair on her head.
But I’d get so distressed by these intrusive thoughts that they’d cause a panic attack. When you’re in the midst of an OCD episode like this, you can’t think with any clarity or rationale.
Every time I went upstairs, I’d think I was going to chuck her over the top of the banister, and I saw those images flash through my mind as clear as day of me letting go and watching Matilda fall.
My mind became a battlefield; these thoughts would arrive like uninvited guests and then refuse to leave. They were vivid and often violent. It was brutal and relentless.
I loved her so much I ached and that’s what made the thoughts all the more unbearable. But I couldn’t tell anyone, because they’d think I was a terrible human being and maybe my baby would be taken away from me.
I don’t think Scott knew how to handle it. He’d get exasperated and couldn’t understand where all this angst was coming from.
At my lowest points I thought about taking my own life. I didn’t want to be here and thought everyone might be better off without me. Matilda deserved someone better than me.
I want to emphasise here that I truly loved being a mum, but when the anxiety and the OCD barged their way in and took control of my head, I was defenceless.
Around six months before Matilda’s birth, Scott had moved from Manchester City to Aston Villa, and one night, when our baby was a few weeks old, a group of friends persuaded me to go on a night out in Birmingham city centre. I should never have gone. I was definitely not in the right frame of mind.
Across the nightclub, I noticed a guy who had red lipstick marks all over his face and in my head I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve just sh**ged him in the toilet! I can’t believe I’ve just cheated on Scott!’
My friends were telling me that this was impossible because I’d been with them the whole time, but I became so overwrought that I had to be taken home.
A doctor suggested I was suffering from postnatal depression and offered to prescribe antidepressants. But I refused any medication. I didn’t want to be on anything.
Back then I had no idea there was a name for what I was experiencing, I just thought I was cracking up and off my head. It wouldn’t be until I got hold of the Daily Mail columnist Bryony Gordon’s brilliant book Mad Girl in the summer of 2016 that everything started to make sense.
She talked so candidly about her OCD, which was something I’d previously thought was to do with people who like their houses clean and tidy, or David Beckham lining up his cans of Pepsi neatly in the fridge.
I’d never linked the condition to intrusive thoughts, but everything Bryony was describing, I recognised in myself and I realised there was a reason behind all this.
I wasn’t a weirdo. My brain was just wired in a different way, and if someone had told me that years ago, it might have saved me a lot of grief and self-loathing.
And that’s why I’m talking about this now and being open about the horrific thoughts I was plagued by, because if there’s anyone reading this going through something similar and it makes them feel less alone, then I’m doing a good thing.
Adapted from Head & Heart by Helen Flanagan (Mirror Books £22, 288pp), to be published January 29. © Helen Flanagan 2026. To order a copy for £19.80 (offer valid to 7/02/26; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
Helen: My OCD thoughts…
I thought it might be helpful if I listed some examples of my OCD thoughts in one place. Compiling this and then seeing them all written down has been hard for me, but I felt strongly it was important. Here goes…
As a kid, as soon as I’d go into the Catholic church attended by my parents sexual thoughts would flare upI’d be convinced that I’d have an accident every time I did a reading at church with my parents sitting there, so proud. I’d dash to the loo afterwards to check my knickers, but my parents never questioned my routineWhen I was swimming, I’d think the pool was all an illusion and I was actually in the sea and going to be eaten by a sharkI used to think I was adopted or perhaps that my older sister was actually my mum and my parents just took me inWhen driving in the dark I’d think there was someone in the back of the car ready to knife meI’d tell myself I’d run someone over and just blanked it out in horror, and that I’d go to prison and never see my kids againWhen I was pregnant, I questioned if my babies were actually Scott’s – what if I’d had sex with someone else and blanked it out?I’d think if Matilda didn’t wear a certain outfit, something bad would happenI thought I was going to die and would feel heartbroken at the prospect of leaving my baby motherlessFriends holding my baby were going to give her infectionsAnyone I left my baby with was going to abuse her and she was too little to be able to tell meMy baby becoming possessed and not being able to save herMe becoming possessed and stabbing my baby. I would hide knives before I went to bedI was worried I’d kill my baby in my sleepNot being able to wean my baby when I was alone because she was going to choke and dieConstant worry in conversations about saying something awful and horrendous and everyone being like WTF?At Corrie, being scared I wouldn’t say my lines and instead say something absolutely horrific which would shock everyoneSaying something dreadful, possibly even racist, during a live TV interview which would be career-endingBelieving the midwife swapped Charlie with an Asian baby and missing the baby I’d given birth toThinking I’ve killed someone but blanked it outHaving to take pictures of every card or letter I’ve ever written as proof that I hadn’t written something horrendousThinking someone is in my house ready to kill me