Emmerdale 's Lucy Pargeter has revealed she had a 'weird and inappropriate' encounter with a fan shortly after the birth of her twins Betsy and Missy. The actress, who has played Chas Dingle in the hit ITV soap since 2002, chooses not to share details of her family life on social media.
But moments after having a caesarean for her twin daughters in 2017, when Lucy says she was 'looking like death', a fan asked for her picture. “I’d just come off the operating table with my newborn twins, looking like death and somebody asked if it was alright if they had a picture," the 45-year-old told OK!.
"I said, ‘Well, it’s not really appropriate,’ and he went, ‘It’s OK, I’ll just take one of you.’ That was a bit weird and inappropriate.” The mum-of-three opened up about her special relationship with co-star Emma Atkins, who has played Chas' cousin Charity Dingle for almost 20 years.
READ MORE:
The two actresses, who are best friends in real life, manage joint childcare for their children who go to the same school. Lucy has daughter Lola, 16, and twins Betsy and Missy, who turn five this week, while Emma, 47, has a seven-year-old son Albert.
They try to keep their fame under wraps from the younger ones. "When we’re out and about, the kids have no idea [that I’m known],” Lucy continued. “The young ones have no idea about what I do for a job, and they don’t necessarily need to.
"As long as I’m providing for them, they don’t need to be a part of that madness.” However, there have been some humorous moments for Emma and Lucy while they try to navigate both their careers on-screen with motherhood off-screen.
Also being interviewed with OK!, Emma said: “The other day Albert was desperate for a magazine, he said, ‘Mummy, Mummy, can I get a magazine?’ As we turned the aisle, I said, ‘Just wait, be patient.’ Eventually, we got to the aisle and he ran down and went, ‘You! It’s you, you’re there!’
“I was like, ‘Albert, shut up, it’s fine.’ There were people looking. I know it’s part of the job but I often forget and then suddenly think, ‘Oh my goodness, that is a bit crazy.’
"I didn’t even know I would be on there [a magazine] because I’m sometimes not aware of storylines because I’m too busy being a mum. You lose track.”
Lucy added: “The girls came out of the bath the other night and Emmerdale just happened to be on because the telly had clicked on. [I said] ‘Look, look, that’s Mummy’s work’ and they went, ‘Oh no, not this! Can we watch something else?’"
As well as protecting their own children from the limelight, it's clear Emma and Lucy have a fierce loyalty to their on-screen Dingle family. The pair are both still close to their former co-stars Charley Webb, who played Charity’s daughter Debbie, and Danny Miller, Chas’s son Aaron.
Despite the fact Charley is 13 years younger than Emma, she describes her as a "mother figure". They live just around the corner from each other and their children are “inseparable” – Charley has sons Buster, Bowie, and Ace with fellow Emmerdale star Matthew Wolfenden.
Speaking of her friendship with Charley, Emma said: “She’s very organised and to think she’s 13 years younger, she’s often got a maternal instinct with me. We’ve got a really lovely friendship, to be honest.
“We used to have a lot of emotional scenes together, being mother and daughter. I do miss that. There was, again, a lot of authenticity to it because of our history as friends.
“I took her under my wing when she joined the show at 14 and I think she looked up to me – I felt honoured that I was bonding with this young girl who felt like she could come to me for advice and stuff. It’s quite a unique friendship in that way.”
Lucy added: “Charley Webb I see more out of work than I did in work anyway, so she’s still very much a part of my life and all of our lives. Danny, I miss him all the time.
"I miss his phone calls on the M62 going, ‘Can you just tell them I’m going to be 15 minutes late because the traffic is really bad.’ I just miss him.
"We were very much kind of like, not a mother and son relationship, but we always had that closeness if he was ever in trouble or if anything was happening, he used to call for a bit of advice."
To get the latest email updates from the Manchester Evening News, click here.
