Former Hollyoaks star Lysette Anthony has detailed her secret battle with Parkinson's for the last six years in an appearance on ITV's Loose Women.
The 58-year-old,who was killed off Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks earlier this year, opened up about the first symptoms she noticed, which included shaking while she was trying to light a cigarette.
After keeping her diagnosis a secret, the actress appeared on Tuesday’s instalment of Loose Women alongside panellists Charlene White, Carol McGiffin, Linda Robson and Coleen Nolan to discuss the disease.
Lysette said she was diagnosed with Parkinson's the same week she landed her role in Hollyoaks.
The former soap star became visibly emotional in the ITV studio as she detailed asking her 11-year-old son Jimmy not to tell anyone about her diagnosis, amid fears that she could lose her job.
But after her Hollyoaks contract wasn't renewed and seeing her character Marnie Nightingale killed off, Lysette realised it was time to open up.
The mum-of-one’s voice grew hoarse as she said: “I remember when we moved up for Hollyoaks, the hardest thing - and I feel so bad about it - was saying to him, let’s find someone you definitely can talk to, but you cannot confide in anyone because I’ll lose my job.
“Being a single parent and being an actor, it’s nigh-on impossible. How are you meant to work?
“When I was giving birth to Jimmy, they wrote it into the story and then were like, can you hurry up? That’s the trade-off.”
Lysette said when she began noticing symptoms, she heard comedian Sir Billy Connolly talking about his life with the condition on Desert Island Discs when she realised "that's what I've got".
Lysette said the only person on set who knew about her diagnosis was Greg Finnegan, who played her son.
Lysette opened up for the first time about her diagnosis earlier this year, telling OK!: "I decided to, well, brave it and speak out now because there is no cure and I need to be a part of the cure, but also because my symptoms have got worse."
She said: "I've made my peace in many ways, in terms of I now call my add-on Parky. If I do too much it will basically shut me down and paralyse my, or my hands won't work.
"At Christmas I did really think I was dying when the things were really bad, it was so bad."
Lysette described something called "freezing" which she said sees her unable to move before getting a "rush of smoke and sound in your ears". She explained how she'll then fall to the ground and that it happened to her one day on the set of Hollyoaks, but that she soldiered on and "didn't miss a scene".
Getting tearful, she said: "Nobody deserves to be humiliated and to feel scared that they're going to lose and they're not going to able to look after their child."
