Steve McDonald has spent a bit more time on screen of late, after he discovered the horrifying truth behind his daughter Amy Barlow's sudden decision to move back home. The teen, played by Elle Mulvaney in the ITV soap, left the flat she shared with friend Aaron Sandford after she accused him of rape.
Weeks after the ordeal, at 1 Coronation Street, Amy told Tracy that she was raped. Tracy gently asked her what had happened and Amy told her heartbreakingly: "He was someone I knew, someone I trusted. I never expected to be raped in my own bed by a mate." Tracy agreed to tell Amy's dad Steve for her and when he reacted angrily, saying he wanted to go after Aaron, she told him: "She's right - we need to go to the police and let them deal with it."
But it was later Tracy who acted angrily when she felt her daughter's report to the police wasn't taken seriously enough, after Aaron was released due to there not being enough evidence to charge him. The sensitive scenes came after Simon Gregson, who plays Steve, appeared to spend some time off-screen.
And it may have had something to do with the injury he sustained. In an episode of the ITV soap aired on November 29, the character returned from a trip to Spain. He got sympathy from his pals in the boozer, with the exception of his wife Tracy, as he explained that he had broken his leg while chasing a mugger.
But the real reason behind it all was that actor Simon, in real-life, broke his leg in six places - and it had to be written into his Corrie scenes. He said at the time: "I've broken my leg. I literally just went over and rolled my ankle, outside the back of the house. It was done in six places."
And, appearing on Good Morning Britain last month, Simon gave an update on his injury and explained how it will still be months before he is back to full health. "It hurts, all the time. It's driving me mad," he said. "I think it's just a case of just having to wait quite a while until it's fully better."
Host Kate Garraway then asked: "So you're out of plaster, you can move about a little bit, you're obviously sitting down but what a problem for you." To which Simon replied: "I know yeah, it's been driving me mad. I can't do the things I usually do but you know, as I said, maybe in a few more months I'll be back to A1 condition."
Steve first hit the Corrie cobbles more than 30 years ago in 1989. The former tearaway has had his fair share of dodgy dealings, but has become more of a comedic character over the years. His misjudgments could also explain why he's remarried so many times on the soap - having got hitched seven times to five different women.
But Simon's real life is very different from his fictional alter ego. The actor attended The Kingsway School in Stockport, where he was scouted for the role of Steve. His first appearance in Corrie aired on December 6, 1989, when he was just 15-years-old.
He was initially credited under his real name - Simon Alan Gregory - but later adopted the stage name of 'Gregson' once he was old enough to join Equity, which is the trade union for British actors. He opted for Gregson as there was already a member with his real name, and it has stuck ever since.
Away from work, Simon married former Hollyoaks actress Emma Gleave in 2010 and they have three boys together - Alfie, Henry, and Teddy. The family-of-five live in Cheshire and Simon recently opened up about his home being haunted. He invited ghost hunter Barri Ghai, psychic medium Ian Lawman and paranormal researcher Jayne Harris to his home in the hope of ridding it of the 'woman in white' he has seen lurking in his abode.
In the episode of Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted, Simon described the shadowy figure of a woman that has been spotted roaming the halls of his home located in an affluent suburb of Cheshire dubbed 'celebrity central' due to its high-profile residents. "It went from right to left across one of the landings upstairs," he recalled.
During the investigation, Simon led Barri upstairs to his eldest son’s room, one of the parts of the house that has seen the most paranormal activity. As Simon’s wife Emma recalled, it was where she first saw the ghostly figure of the woman in a long dress roaming the upstairs rooms. "I see, like, a white figure in the entrance to my little boy's room all the time," she said.
Whilst Simon was taking part in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! in 2021, where he came runner-up, Emma spoke about her husband's life away from the cameras. She shared how Simon sometimes spends his downtime in New York bar in Manchester’s gay village – where he has been known to dress up in drag.
And fans got to see him transform into his own drag alter-ego - Bidet Bardot - last year for ITV show Queens For The Night, which he ended up winning with the help of his drag mentor Myra DuBois - and looked unrecognisable while doing so.
She also said that the soap star is so good at poetry, he keeps a notebook at the bottom of the bed so he can jot down rhymes and ideas. "Nobody knows but Simon is a poet," Emma told the Sunday Mirror at the time. "He’s always writing, he keeps books at the end of the bed so when he can’t sleep, he’ll have a dream or he’ll have a thought and will write it down."
Emma also opened up about Simon's crippling anxiety disorder, saying he has made great strides since they first met. The proud wife said: “Ten years ago there would have been absolutely no way he would have done I’m A Celeb. So to watch him go in and take on the unknown, which he was really nervous about, to actually embrace it and to look so relaxed while he is doing it, we are dead proud of him. I was very emotional watching.
"When we first got together he couldn’t leave the house or go to restaurants because it was so bad. One time we went to stay in our caravan in Anglesey and Simon thought he was having a stroke and dying. His whole face dropped and we had to call an ambulance. He got to the hospital and they told him he had a panic attack."
She added: "He has since been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and it has completely changed his life. He was medicated and there was a reason why he felt like he did. That changed everything for him, so he could understand what was wrong. Now he speaks to a lot of people on social media about it and he likes helping people."
Following his stint on ITV reality show I'm A Celeb, Simon opened up about his and his wife's heartbreaking journey to becoming the family they are today. He emotionally shared how Emma suffered 11 miscarriages with one baby, a daughter, tragically dying at 21 weeks.
Speaking to Tim Vincent on The Likely Dads podcast, Simon said: "We lost 11 along the way. It was horrific. The first one was 21 weeks. When Emma lost Georgia, she was 21 weeks, and what had happened was Emma’s tubes were twisted, but Georgia stayed alive long enough to untwist the tubes which they said it was amazing how she survived all that and then went.
"But that paved the way for Alfie you see, so we always think of her as like an angel. But then we lost loads along the way. I think it’s because Emma can’t carry girls for some reason." After his real-life experiences, Simon faced his on-screen character going through a similar heartbreak when a Corrie storyline addressed baby loss for his character and his then partner Michelle Connor, played by Kym Marsh, who had also tragically lost her son Archie moments after his birth at 21 weeks in February 2009.
"I think the worst thing was when they made it into a storyline. They didn’t know what had happened with me," Simon said of the storyline. "It was with Kym, and Kym had lost a child. So of course, you know, they asked her whether she would do the storyline and of course, she didn’t want to see – it’s a prosthetic baby and it’s amazing and it was dressed exactly the same as he was, you know, which I think is what she requested because she wanted the emotions to be real, but it was like this is a one take at a time."
However, the emotional storyline inspired him to speak out about his own experience because he felt that men were never asked how they deal with the loss. "It was awful yes, but they didn’t know so all the interviews were 'How does she feel, how does she feel?' and I had to interject and say 'Do you know what, it’s not easy for the guy either.'"
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