Emmerdale fans were devastated after Fiona Wade's exit from the show was confirmed this week.
The soap star has become a fan favourite on the long running ITV show since she first joined the cast as Priya Sharma in 2011. She has since played a key role in a number of major storylines, including her turbulent marriage to Rakesh Kotecha.
The character has recently been battling confidence issues since she suffered severe burns after being targeted by the villainous Meena Jutla. However, her dramatic time in the fictional Yorkshire village is about to come to an end as ITV confirmed to Digital Spy she will be filming her final scenes in the upcoming months.
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Details surrounding Fiona's exit have been kept under wraps, but it is believed the soap star wants to pursue other career opportunities. Emmerdale viewers took to Twitter to issue tributes after Fiona's exit was confirmed. Darren said: "Gutted it’s been confirmed that @FionaWade_ is leaving #Emmerdale, hope Priya gets a good exit and not just in a taxi."
Fiona's life away from the Yorkshire village is fortunately less dramatic than her on-screen counterpart. She may have had a number of disastrous relationships on screen, but in real life she is happily married to Simon Cotton.
Soap fans may recognise Simon from his role in Emmerdale when he played Home Farm client, Hugh Bryant. The character appeared in the show in 2017 when Rebecca White arranged a team building day for them at Tree Top Adventure World.
Hugh’s plans to check out Rebecca’s management skills took a turn for the worse when his car ended up on fire and he terminated his business with Home Farm. The actor has also starred in The Fall Of The Krays, The Unseen, Doctors, and Amazon Prime’s Hanna.
Fiona and Simon were married in 2019 and they regularly share snaps from their happy family life on Instagram. Fiona swooned as she revealed in March that Simon treated her to a romantic holiday in celebration of her 43rd birthday.
She said: "A beautiful, relaxing birthday weekend away. Thank you my love."
Priya Kotecha is aged just 35 in the show and fans took to the comments to praise Fiona as they thought the soap star was younger. Posting in an Emmerdale fan group on Facebook at the time, one woman said: "You look far younger! Enjoy your special day", while another added: "Wow, 43? I would have put her in her late 20s. Whatever you're doing keep doing it, it's working wonders."
Another soap fan said: "Happy birthday you don't look 43 omg lovely lady have a great day x" and a fourth added: "Happy Birthday to Fiona. I read about her a while ago, they said she was 42, a typing error I thought...surely they meant 32?!"
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