Not long ago, Helen Flanagan’s daughter Delilah asked her if she planned to remove the tattoo she has of her father’s name, now that they had broken up. “I said of course not, because he’s an important part of mom’s story,” Helen recalls. “I told her that I loved her father very much.”
Footballer Scott Sinclair certainly was, and remains, a big part of 34-year-old Helen’s life – the couple got together when she was 18, had three children (Matilda, nine, Delilah, six, and Charlie, three) and got engaged in 2018.
Then, in June 2022, after 13 years together, actress and influencer Helen revealed they had split, a devastating turn of events that had an impact that resonated long after the initial shock: earlier this year and struggling to deal with her emotions, she also had a terrifying reaction to her ADHD medication that plunged her into psychosis.
This month, Helen will appear on Celebs Go Dating, the cult show in which stars are paired up with members of the public.
“I wasn’t really feeling very well,” she recalls now. “Basically, between December and January, I was having mental health issues, so I took my medication to try and feel better, but unfortunately that just made things worse.”
Former Coronation Street star Helen took weeks to recover (she says that while she can “remember bits and pieces” of that dark time, she prefers not to), during which she was forced to pull out of a touring production of Cluedo that she hoped would mark her return to dramatic fame. Instead, she will step back into the spotlight in a rather different role – and one that draws a firm line under her relationship: this month, Helen will appear on Celebs Go Dating, the cult show in which stars such as Married At First Sight’s Ella Morgan and Love Island’s Chris Taylor are paired up with members of the public.
Now in its 13th season, the show is a beloved fixture on the television calendar, but Helen is something of a new contestant, given that until her split from Scott she had never dated before and had barely dipped her toe in the game before signing up.
“I’ve been on a few dates and had a few experiences, so to speak,” she says of her recent ventures into showbiz. “But filming this was different, a lot of fun and I met some lovely people. I’ve also grown very fond of Ella and Chris.”
As the show hasn’t aired yet, it can’t reveal much in terms of whether Cupid’s arrow struck, although not long after we meet the show’s dating expert Anna Williamson, she jokingly revealed that Helen had almost been kicked out of the show’s dating agency for “breaking the rules” and was also responsible for the “biggest cliffhanger twist” the contestants had ever had in Celebs Go Dating history.
Helen with her ex Scott Sinclair and their children Matilda, Charlie and Delilah
All this awaits her when we meet. She is in the middle of filming and is less concerned about finding love than about the impression she might make on the public. “I don’t hold back, I’m honest when I talk about things in my life,” she says. “I’ve tried to respect other people’s feelings, but it worries me. I can’t help being anything other than myself; I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
She seems genuinely worried, a sign of the vulnerability that underlies much of our interview. Although she looks fabulous and is resolutely upbeat, she confesses that her mental health remains fragile and at one point breaks down when talking about being alone in the family home in Bolton bought for her by Scott, the former Chelsea and Celtic footballer who now plays for Bristol Rovers.
“He bought me that house as a surprise,” she says. “It was the house I always wanted to have close to where I grew up, and Charlie was just a baby, so for a long time when Scott was gone, I felt really sad in the house most of the time.” At the time, tears were streaming down her face. “Especially when he took the kids away for the weekend, I couldn’t be home alone without them. I remember feeling really proud of myself when I was left home alone without my kids for the weekend.”
It’s a reminder that, these days, a lot of the emotions from the breakup are still raw. “Sometimes I feel good for a long time, like I felt pretty good for the last few months, and then I’m struggling, like a week ago,” she says. “It’s an up and down. I think I have everything — OCD, ADHD — but I think it’s important to talk about it, and if that makes people feel less alone, then that’s great. I have people coming up to me and saying thank you, and that makes it all worth it.”
“I’m all for women accepting their bodies and feeling good about themselves,” says Helen.
Helen poses as a lingerie model for Ann Summers in January. “I’m a very free spirit and I like to be myself,” she says.
It’s certainly a new kind of role for a girl who remains best known for playing the troubled Rosie Webster in Coronation Street from 2000 to 2012 – a role she reprised in 2017 before taking maternity leave and not returning. She was ten when she joined the show and did indeed grow up on the set. “Half the time I was at school and half the time I was on set,” she recalls. “I was very lucky and I have amazing memories of being on set and the excitement of it.”
She was nominated for several soap awards, but after getting together with Scott, motherhood came quickly: Matilda was born when she was 24. “I think it’s a football thing,” she says of her relative youth at the time. “I think girls in football start younger because they’re very lucky that their partner has a good job.”
Either way, with three children in seven years, Helen’s work was largely limited to reality TV shows and social media campaigns, including modelling lingerie for Ann Summers via some rather eye-catching (and in some quarters eyebrow-raising) photos. “I’m all for women embracing their bodies and feeling good about themselves,” Helen says defiantly of those undeniably risqué images. “I get some flak for that on social media, but so what? I’m a very free spirit and I like being myself.”
Still, one senses that taking on a serious new theatre role was important to her – she says she feels most at home in front of a camera or on stage – which made the fact that she had to pull out of the Cluedo tour all the more devastating.
Today she confesses that even before her terrifying psychotic episode she had been struggling: after the breakup, she had shut down many of her emotions, going into what she calls “survival mode,” only to plummet into the abyss when she had to spend Christmas Day without her children as they were spending the day with Scott.
She began taking ADHD medication to stabilise herself, but suffered a terrible reaction that caused her behaviour to deteriorate so drastically that her nanny, who offers an extra pair of hands when needed, had to contact Helen’s parents to alert them that something was wrong. Psychosis is described as “when you perceive or interpret reality in a different way to the people around you”, and Helen has said that she was “seeing things, feeling like I was in danger all the time”.
It took her almost three months to fully recover and the role of Cluedo was taken over by Strictly winner Ellie Leach. “I was devastated because I really wanted to do it but I just wasn’t in the right place… I basically couldn’t work for two and a half months,” she says. “I was really upset about it, devastated, but I had to prioritise feeling better, for myself and for the kids.”
Therapy cured her, as did exercise, good nutrition and housekeeping. “I managed to get everything organized,” she laughs, “although not for long with three wild children.”
She seems stronger now, and insists she is, although she admits she is still dealing with the aftermath of a breakup she describes as more akin to a divorce. “I was with him for 13 years, we were engaged, we’ve had three young children together, so I don’t see it as just a breakup,” she says. “I’ve had to accept the fact that it’s going to be very complicated and give myself a break while I find my way.”
What went wrong? “When I was younger, I loved my ex so much, but three kids can be a lot of pressure,” she says candidly. “And then I had my acting career and he had his footballing career, and then we moved house when Charlie was about two months old, which we probably shouldn’t have done. I also had postnatal depression. There was just too much going on. It’s incredibly sad. I still love him so much, but right now we don’t love each other, although I’m sure that will change in time.”
Helen remains best known to many for playing the troubled Rosie Webster in Coronation Street.
This means that the couple currently communicates mainly through their respective parents. “I know it’s not a very mature thing and I really hope it gets sorted out,” she says. “But what we don’t do is argue in front of the kids, so we make sure they don’t see any drama. I would never speak ill of their father in front of them, it’s all about the kids and them being happy.”
It helps that she has a close relationship with Scott’s mother, with whom she recently went on holiday with the children. “It’s funny sometimes because I’ll call her and forget that he’s her son because I’ll start talking about him,” she laughs. “But I get on really well with her and she’s a great grandmother to the kids.”
Despite all the tension between them and her ex (she candidly admits they were “angry with each other”), they also managed to have a few laughs when Helen found her profile on a dating app. “We had a bit of a laugh,” she admits. She laughs out loud as she recalls creating her own profile with her grandmother. “The only picture I found that I liked of myself was when I was pregnant, so we zoomed in on my face and couldn’t stop laughing,” she recalls. “I thought it was really funny because obviously I’d never been on a date before and seeing all these men on that app made me laugh so hard.”
As we’ve seen, there’s no hint as to whether she might stop using the dating app after being paired up on TV, although Helen says she’s looking for the right man, not least to fulfil her dream of getting married. “I’m a romantic, I want a big wedding one day,” she says. “I’ve wanted it since I was young. But when you’re in a relationship that doesn’t work out, you get wary. So I’d like to, but it would have to be with the right person.”
She hasn’t ruled out having another baby either. “My mum will probably read this and say, ‘Oh my God!’ But I love babies, I’m always melancholic,” she smiles.
For now, though, her three children keep her busy, and Helen admits she thrives amid the chaos. “I’m not the best on my own and I often invite friends over for sleepovers as I find it hard to be alone,” she says. “Then when I have the kids, which I do 90 per cent of the time, it can be difficult to juggle everything. But I think you have to realise that nothing is going to be perfect. All you can do is try your best and be true to yourself.”
- Celebs Go Dating will air Monday to Thursday at 9pm for five weeks from 19 August on E4.
