My first decade on Coronation Street was hell, reveals soap icon Simon Gregson as he opens up on job challenges

and said that as a young man, he got a lot of abuse from people his own age.

He said: “It’s instant jealousy because they think you’re ­multi-millionaires, which obviously is not the case. And secondly, they have a preconception.

“They’re like, ‘He’s off the telly, therefore he’s going to be an ­arsehole. He’s going to have his head up his backside, he’s going to be a show-off, he’s going to be ­big-headed and he’s going to think he’s great.’

“So you kind of go out of your way to convince a stranger you’re a normal person and that’s how I spent most of my time doing.

"It’s only into my late-30s I was like, ‘What are you doing? Who cares what they think?’”

Simon may be one of Corrie’s longest-running stars but learned not to say he is “famous”.

He said: “You never want to use the word ‘famous’. I used it once on Twitter and got berated like mad. ‘Who do you think you are using the word famous?’

“It’s the most-watched, longest-running continuing serial drama on the planet. If you can’t use the word famous, what am I supposed to use? Tomato?”

And while Simon has been ­starring on the cobbles for more than three decades, his mum still warns him about his job.

He laughed: “Every year my mum still says, ‘Don’t rock the boat. You might not be there.’ ‘Mum it’s been 34 years.’

“Every year she thinks it might be the last time, and you never know, it might be! It takes one producer to go ‘na, don’t like him anymore’.”

• Living with Lucy airs tonight on Virgin Media One at 9pm.