Former Emmerdale star Kelli Hollis, who is best known for her role as Ali Spencer on the ITV soap, has ditched the Dales for a life selling medicinal marijuana in Thailand.
Kelli has now opened up on her new quiet life in Pattaya after moving to Thailand permanently earlier this year with her partner, Martin.
Leeds -born actress, Kelli, has had a long and varied acting career having starred in a number of hit shows. She is probably best known from her two stints in Emmerdale and for her role as shop owner Yvonne Karib in Channel 4's popular comedy-drama, Shameless.
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She also played the character of Tina Crabtree in two television dramas, Tina Goes Shopping and Tina Takes a Break as well as Mischief night, which featured in cinemas.
Kelli also played Loan Shark Linda in the Channel 4 Drama Ackley Bridge and in BBC 1 drama Waterloo Road, as Chantel. In May 2020, she appeared in an episode of the BBC soap opera Doctors as Rachel Edwards.
In more recent times Kelli has taken a backseat as she builds a new much quieter life for herself in Pattaya. Kelli and her partner, Martin, whom she met in Leeds, temporarily moved to Thailand back in April when Martin was offered a job that was expected to last no more than six months.
However, the pair have since set up home there after falling in love with the Southeast Asian country. So when the opportunity to stay permanently arose Kelli said it was a "no-brainer" for them.
And she has since gone on to set up her own business selling medicinal marijuana after it was recently legalised in the country she now calls home.
In an exclusive interview with LeedsLive Kelli explained how it came to be. She said: "Long story short I moved back to Leeds after living on the East Coast for a few years, got with my new partner, Martin, we'd only been together about four months and he got offered a job in Bangkok.
"It was a four to six-month contract so he basically said look do you want to come to Thailand so I was like yeah why not. And then after a couple of months we already realised that we loved it so much we weren't going to go home and that was that.
"We've been here since April and have no plans to return at the moment. We've applied for full time visas, we've got work permits. We'd been to Pattaya a few times on a holiday, we did a bit of island hopping and in June they legalised marijuana and we found this really cute little shop and got really good friends with the owner and decided to basically set up our own weed shop."
Kelli went on to talk more about her new business venture, which is called La Choza Pratumnak, she admitted: "I'll be honest I've smoked weed since I was about fifteen but I'm not a hard-core weed smoker, I can't do full joints and edibles and all that so it probably bodes well or I'd probably smoke all the profits!" she joked.
"It's definitely not something I envisaged but we've definitely made the right choice.
"All we talked about when we first met was travelling. I'd done some travelling before and he's worked all over the world.
"We'd be sat saying one day we need to get out of here and then the job opportunity came and then as soon as we got here we were just like, yeah, we're not going home" continued the 46-year-old.
Kelli spoke of the anonymity her new life has provided her and how it's "refreshing". She added: "I'll be honest as well, I love my job don't get me wrong I absolutely love my job but I really do like being a little bit incognito here, especially after twenty years."
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But not everyone was so happy when Kelli announced her move was permanent, as a mother-of-two the actress leaves her two grown-up children back in the UK, who she says were shocked initially by the news but have hopes to come out and visit in the new year.
The former soap star said: "I'm hoping they're going to come soon, obviously it's very far, my daughter's got my little grandson and she works full time and my son's at university. They've sort of got their heads around it now, obviously I was only going to be here for four to six months initially, so then having to sort of say I'm not coming back anytime soon, that came as a bit of a shock.
"But I speak to them regularly and the plan is after Christmas hopefully we're going to be able to sort some flights out for them to come and visit."
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