Helen has opened up about a clash with a former co-star (Picture: Ian West/PA Wire)
While Coronation Street legend Helen Flanagan’s new autobiography, Head & Heart: Break-ups, Breakdowns and Being Rosie, isn’t due to be released until January 29th, excerpts released from the book have revealed that an interaction with a fellow Weatherfield icon left her ‘broken’ and ‘bawling her eyes out’.
Opening up in her new book, the Rosie Webster actress spoke about the time Antony Cotton, who plays Sean Tully, made a cruel jibe that brought her to tears.
‘The actor Antony Cotton, who played barman Sean Tully, once reduced me to tears when he took the mickey out of the fact I was on medication,’ she began.
”Here comes Helen Flanagan,’ he said. ‘You hear her rattling before you see her.’ To him it was a joke for a few cheap laughs, but this was my life.
‘I didn’t respond, I was too broken. Instead, I went to the toilets and bawled my eyes out.’
Metro has reached out to both Coronation Street and representatives for Antony Cotton for comment.
Helen detailed Antony making her cry (Picture: Shutterstock/ITV)
Helen has been incredibly open about her struggles with mental health (Picture: Yui Mok/PA Wire)
The book details her struggles with postnatal depression, PMDD, OCD, ADHD. Describing the time prior to a brutal mental health ‘collapse’, Helen said: ‘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.’
Soon, though, her mental wellbeing plummeted as she became plagued with anxiety and intrusive thoughts.
‘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.’
Helen hopes talking about her mental health will make it easier for others to open up (Picture: Doug Peters/PA Wire)
‘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.
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Helen was later plagued with violent intrusive thoughts, one of which included throwing her baby down the stairs of her home.
Bravely speaking out, she explained that her thoughts were: ‘vivid and often violent. It was brutal and relentless. I loved my daughter so much that I ached, and that’s what made the thoughts all the more unbearable.
‘Every time I went upstairs, I’d think I was going to chuck Matilda over the top of the banister, and I saw those images – of me letting go and watching her fall – flash through my mind as clear as day.’
Helen is beloved by soap fans as Rosie Webster (Picture: ITV)
(Credits: ITV/Shutterstock)
Helen has long been open about the challenges she’s faced in regard to her mental health, and, according to a pre-release Instagram post, hopes that the autobiography will open conversations surrounding the topic and allow readers to feel less alone.
‘I think with mental health, when you talk, you feel less alone and I hope it makes you laugh too,’ she said.
In a previous Instagram post, she described how unwell she had become at one point, and how writing down her feelings helped with her recovery.
‘I became extremely unwell. I was unable to work or look after my kids and I felt really powerless. When I began to write down what I was experiencing, I found it helped… from that, I wanted to create something positive.’
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