'nobody knew'
Coronation Street stopped me from coming out as gay, claims soap legend
CORONATION Street icon Amanda Barrie has claimed it wasn't possible for her to come out publicly while she was on the soap.
Amanda, who played Alma Sedgewick in the ITV drama for 20 years, made the bombshell comments on Loose Women today.
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The 86-year-old actress refused to confirm her sexuality while starring on the soap and later came out as bisexual.
She has previously insisted that she would have been fired if she came out in the 1980s.
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Amanda appeared on Wednesday's Loose Women alongside her wife, writer Hilary Bonner, and shared a kiss on screen.
The Loose Women panellists quizzed the actress about what it was like being in the closet while working on one of the country's most popular TV shows.
"There was no camp of any kind at that time," Amanda stated.
"There was various people in charge of the show so, they call[ed] the tune. Do we call it homophobic? Call it what you like...
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"What people did was they sold you to the press who thought 'there's a story there'.
"The press came and the very same people who would've done that would then say, 'I'm not going to work with someone who's gay.'"
The TV star, who tied the knot with writer Hilary in 2014, confessed only a few close friends on the long-running soap knew the truth.
Amanda explained: "Nobody at Coronation Street knew but my very close friends Helen [Worth], Sue Nicholls and Barbara Knox."
Amanda was with Hilary ten years before they wed at London's Drury Lane Theatre, but the Carry On favourite admits she wasn't at first very keen on the idea.
"I’d been with Hilary for years and we didn’t want to get married before. I kept going, ‘Oh my God, I can’t bear one of those receptions. Ugh!’
She went on: "Then when I did pantomime I asked my Dandini [Cinderella’s sidekick] where he got married and he said Drury Lane Theatre. And I went, ‘Hilary! That’s it, we’re doing it!’
"It’s my favourite theatre – the first place I went when I arrived in London at 13. I said my prayer on Drury Lane steps, ‘Please can I be in the theatre?’
"I’ve never played there except a charity show, although that was my ambition. So we married there instead."
Before coming out at the age of 67, Amanda was married to actor Robin Hunter.
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They wed in 1967 when Amanda was 31, but separated in the 1980s.
The Sun has approached Coronation Street representatives for comment.
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