Former Coronation Street star Katherine Kelly has taken a trip down memory lane while cheering on her royal friend Mike Tindall in the I'm A Celebrity jungle. The former England rugby star, who is married to the King Charles' niece Zara, is in the final four on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! along with Lioness Jill Scott, former health secretary Matt Hancock and Hollyoaks actor Owen Warner.
Katherine, who played Becky in the ITV soap from 2006 to 2012, is tipping her childhood friend Mike to win. She took to Twitter with a throwback photo of the pair, who both grew up in Yorkshire, in fancy dress as she roared him on to be crowned King of the Jungle.
Katherine was among the guests when school pal Mike married Zara at Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh in 2011. She tweeted: "I knew him when he had hair! We watched The Lion King relentlessly at his house as kids, I should have seen this coming.
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She added: "@miketindall13 King of the Jungle #ImACeleb #teamtinds (Yes that’s a feather sticking out of my head-a fancy dress party not a night out on Wakey Westgate!)"
During his stint on the ITV reality show Mike, 44, who was a member of the English rugby union squad which won the 2003 World Cup, told the story of how he and Zara met. And he revealed they discovered they 'both quite like getting smashed' during their 'boozy' first date.
Mike met Zara, 41, during England's World Cup-winning campaign in Australia in 2003. Speaking in the famous camp to comedian Babatúndé Aleshe and Hollyoaks actor Owen Warner about his wife, he explained that they met in Sydney.
Mike explained about meeting Zara: “I was at the World Cup, she was out watching. I got dropped from the semi-final. I was p****d off and so I went for a beer with another guy who got dropped and a guy who was over [in Sydney]. They’d met her before and they introduced us and then got chatting.”
Owen asked: “So if you never got dropped you never would have met her?” Mike replied: “Best decision of Clive Woodward’s life.” And Owen added: “Thank god he dropped you.”
Speaking about their first date, Mike added: “First actual date, just went out for lunch locally. And ended up being quite a boozy one. Then we figured out that we both quite like getting smashed. It was a good start.” Mike and Zara, the daughter of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips, who is 20th in the line of succession to the British throne, have three children, Mia, eight, Lena, four, and Lucas, one.
Katherine's iconic Corrie character Becky started as a dislikable character but Katherine soon turned her into a Corrie icon, who became close friends with Roy and Hayley Cropper and was married to Steve McDonald. After six years on the soap, Katherine decided to move on to exciting new projects.
In 2013 she got her next major role as socialite Lady Loxley in ITV drama Mr Selfridge, before joining the cast of Happy Valley as DI Jodie Shackleton. She has also starred in the dramas Him, Cheat and the second series of Liar as Detective Karen Renton.
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