SHAME TO FAME
Where are the Shameless cast now – from cocaine scandal to car crash drama, Corrie star and £18m cosmetics empire
THEY played some of the wildest characters on TV - but the cast of Shameless have taken very different paths since leaving the Chatsworth Estate.
This week, it was announced comedy actress Maggie Fox had died suddenly following an accident.
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Maggie was best known for her roles in Coronation Street, The Forsyte Saga and, in 2006, she appeared in Shameless.
The cast has gone through as much off-screen drama as on, from romances (and splits) to major TV and movie roles and even a scandal over a notorious child killer.
Here we take a look at what happened after they left the famous Chatsworth estate.
From Lip to Lip filler
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It might surprise you to know that Jody Latham, who played Philip 'Lip' Gallagher in the Channel 4 series, is now a multi-millionaire owner of an.
The 39-year-old actor got into the beauty business when he met an extra who was doing Botox injections and decided to join the industry himself.
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Despite now wearing a Rolex watch, he told the : "I live in a two-bed flat and drive a modest car. I’m pumping everything back into the company."
As well as appearing in Shameless, Jody also had roles in EastEnders as evil pimp Rob Grayson and in Waterloo Road as Steve-O Malone.
He's stayed loyal to Manchester too - where Shameless is set - and has opened his own theatre school, the Jody Latham School of Acting.
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Along with his beauty empire, the dad-of-two has also opened his own theatre school in Manchester called the Jody Latham School of Acting.
In 2012, he was given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years, for growing cannabis.
Shameful to Shakespeare
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As the Gallagher family patriarch, Frank Gallagher was well known for his outbursts and drinking habits - but actor David Threlfall couldn't be further from the man he portrayed on screen.
The 68-year-old star has enjoyed major roles in Shakespeare plays and wider theatre, taking on parts including Oedipus, Macbeth, and Don Quixote.
On film, his credits include Hot Fuzz, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Master and Commander and Alien Autopsy. In 2016 he also starred as Abel Croker in Ripper Street.
He has been married to Bosnian-British actress Brana Bajic since 1995, and the pair have two children. Brana has appeared in British TV shows such as The Bill, Trial and Retribution and The Bletchley Circle.
Drugs, a makeover and a brush with the law
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Tina Malone - who played foul-mouthed Mimi in the series - has had a very turbulent past few years.
The 57-year-old actress had a reported £50,000 makeover, including a tummy tuck and a face lift, after dropping a whopping 12 stone when she had a gastric band fitted.
She appeared in Celebrity Big Brother in 2009, before marrying her husband Paul Chase, who is 19 years her junior, in 2010. They have daughter Flame together, while Tina also has a daughter, Danielle, from a previous relationship.
She briefly split from Paul, before they reconciled in February 2020.
In December 2018, Tina was sacked from a production of Sleeping Beauty just days before Christmas after admitting to possession of cocaine. But in an emotional interview, she insisted she was set up.
In March 2019, she was handed an eight month suspended sentence and fined £10,000 for breaching the identity of James Bulger's killer, Jon Venables by sharing an alleged picture of the toddler's killer on social media.
She later told that the whole court case "ruined her life".
Corrie on in Manchester
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Actress Rebecca Ryan, now 30, played young Debbie Gallagher on Shameless from the age of 12.
Debbie eventually left to join the army, but actress Rebecca went down a different route completely - joining BBC series Waterloo Road as Vicki MacDonald from 2009 to 2011, and Gemma Dean in Casualty from 2017 to 2019.
She's now crossed from the Chatsworth estate to the other side of Manchester, to Weatherfield, and plays Underworld factory assistant Lydia Chambers in Coronation Street.
Rebecca's brother Jack James Ryan is also currently in the soap, as drug dealer Jacob Hay.
She said: “It’s a dream come true to be working on the show at the same time, but it’s a total coincidence.”
On-set love ... and divorce
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TV and stage actress Anne-Marie Duff, 51, played reluctant matriarch Fiona in the series.
Co-star James McAvoy played her love interest Steve on the show, before they departed together - and started a relationship off-camera as well.
The two married in a quiet ceremony in 2006 and have one child Brendan together, who was born in 2010. They divorced in late 2016.
Her career went from strength to strength after Shameless, with her starring as Elizabeth in BBC's The Virgin Queen in 2006 - earning her a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress.
She also starred as the mother of Sex Education's central character Maeve and her film work includes 2009 biographical film Nowhere Boy about John Lennon's adolescence with Anne-Marie starring as Julia Lennon.
Superstardom and Bake Off champ
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Perhaps one of the most successful stars from the show is James McAvoy, 42.
After splitting from Anne Marie Duff in 2016, he started dating American personal assistant Lisa Liberati in 2018, on the set of Split in America.
Last month, he revealed the pair have secretly married.
James has starred in everything from X-Men to Split, Atonement and His Dark Materials since leaving Shameless.
Not only is he one of our top actors, but he also proved a dab-hand with a mixer on Celebrity Bake Off last year and was crowned winner. He later revealed he had trained as a confectioner for three years.
Rubbing shoulders with Hollywood royalty
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Actor Gerard Kearns, 36, is best known for his portrayal of Ian Gallagher in the series.
Ian famously had an affair, while underage, with married corner shop owner Kash Karib, before his character left the show suddenly after accidentally killing Joe Pritchard.
Gerard went on to star in everything from The Mark of Cain to crime drama Trespass Against Us, alongside Hollywood heartthrob Michael Fassbender, and the second series of the BBC 1 daytime show Moving On.
He has been married to Sarah Kearns since 2017. Together they have two sons, Aidan Kearns and James Kearns.
Gerard most recently starred in the series The English Game about the invention of football.
Devoted dad
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He shot to fame as barman Kev on Shameless, but Dean Lennox Kelly has also starred in Jamestown and as William Shakespeare in Doctor Who.
He was well known for stripping off for raunchy sex scenes during his time on the show, and told after he left: "There was loads in Shameless. If I was an actress people would probably talk about how many times I've taken my clothes off for the camera. But when you're a bloke nobody seems to care.
"Now the older I get the more I'm trying to limit the love scenes, so that eventually there'll be no flesh visible at all. Just my feet."
He now shares two kids with wife Eugenie, and he's previously spoken about his happy home life.
He told : “I have a blessed life. My wife Eugenie is a full-time mother so I can go out and work, but I try to be around as much as possible.”
Gritty drama queen
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Kev's on-screen love interest Veronica was played by actress Maxine Peake, 47.
The pair struggled to conceive on screen, portraying a heartbreaking struggle many parents face.
Life cruelly imitated art when Maxine and her art director partner Pawlo Wintoniuk also struggled to have children off screen, undergoing IVF and tragically having two miscarriages.
She told Red Magazine: “I get angry about the way women are forced and bullied into what the male ideal is," she added. "Men don’t get quizzed about their personal lives in the same way.
“No one says to a man, you’re 38 and you haven’t got children – why?"
Maxine has landed some very hard-hitting roles since Shameless.
In 2006, she played Myra Hindley in the dark retelling of the real-life Moors Murders. She also played sexual health worker Sara Rowbotham in Three Girls - a drama about the Rochdale child sex abuse scandal.
Maxine also appeared in the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything, as Elaine Mason. Most recently, we saw her in the Hillsborough drama, Anne.
The actress lives in Salford, Manchester with Pawlo. In an interview with she referred to him as her "soulmate".
Found love with her co-star
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Rebecca Atkinson, 38, played rebellious Karen Maguire on Shameless from 2004 to 2013, with top storylines including an affair with Frank and taking over The Jockey with her new husband, Jamie Maguire.
Staying firmly in acting once she left, she joined the cast of BBC Scotland soap opera, River City, in 2016 as Belinda Roberts.
She's also starred in Life on Mars, Holby City, Coronation Street and Doctors.
And like her co-stars, Rebecca enjoyed a real life romance with a colleague, as she's still happily married to Ben Batt, who played Joe Pritchard. They have a son together.
Car crash drama
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He played Carl in the famous Channel 4 series, but Elliott Tittensor has changed dramatically since - and had a very turbulent few years.
The actor has taken up tattoo artistry and Jiu-Jitsu since leaving Shameless and breaking up with his longtime partner and Skins star Kaya Scodelario.
Elliott hit the headlines in 2010 when he was arrested following a shocking car accident which left a teenager, Oliver Flint, brain-damaged and blind in one eye following a row.
Flint was thrown from the bonnet of the actor's BMW outside a McDonald’s restaurant.
Elliott claimed he acted in self-defence after Mr Flint had climbed up and bashed on his car windscreen.
In 2015, two years after their split, Kaya spoke as a character witness for Elliott in court via a video link from Australia, where she was filming Pirates of the Caribbean 5.
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He was ordered to pay substantial damages to Mr Flint as he was driving an uninsured car at the time.
Mr Justice Edis said: “The decision to which I have come is that Mr Flint
succeeds in his claim against Mr Tittensor for battery.”
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