Coronation Street's Charlie De Melo issued an "upsetting" admission as he vowed to never appear in another soap.
The 32-year-old has played Imran Habeen on the Cobbles since 2017. In recent weeks, the character has been locked in a vicious custody battle with Abi Martin over custody of their baby son, Alfie.
Imran's turbulent time on the Cobbles came to an end last night when the character died after he was in a car crash alongside his wife, Toyah Battersby. Imran saved his wife from the wreckage, but collapsed and died due to his injuries.
READ MORE: Coronation Street fans 'work out' who gets baby Alfie after horror crash
Charlie revealed he had planned to quit the show two years ago, but his exit was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. He added: "I kind of made the decision to move on. I was ready to draw a line under my time in Manchester and say it was a worthy but failed experience to have made this big move and to have joined a job like this. But that’s when covid struck."
"So the decision kind of got taken out of my hands so it meant just by default that it was the sensible choice to stay and [then] the personal life got cleared up a bit and the camaraderie was so strong to try and keep the ship afloat and the stuff I was being put in the middle of with the storyline with Ian Bartholomew [Geoff Metcalfe] and Shelley King [Yasmeen Metcalfe] then meeting and working with Millie Gibson [Kelly Neelan] and having much more to do with Georgia, it just meant that the subsequent two years since have been such a joy."
Charlie said he loved his stint on Corrie, but felt it was the right time to leave the show. He said: "I was enjoying myself so much there and constantly being challenged and put in front of some of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with.
"But that meant I saw a version of myself that would be staying there until I was booted or whatever and I came to the realisation that I have no spouse, no car, no mortgage, or kid, all these things that would otherwise necessitate consistency and I thought if I don’t close my eyes and step off into the void now, I never will. It was just if not now, when? And if not now, possibly never"
Charlie also issued an update on his next career move and vowed to never appear in another soap. He said: "I am ambitious but I’m also sort of directionless. It would be a shorter list to say what I don’t want to do. I by no means mean this to sound disparaging but the main thing is to not do another job like this [Corrie]."
"One, I’ve done it and, two… wherever it was, whichever one of the other shows it would be there would never be another Georgia there or another Millie [Gibson - who plays Kelly Neelan] there and there will never be another Jane [Danson - Leanne Battersby] there."
The soap star described his time in the Cobbles as "incomparable", but admitted it was "upsetting" that he would no longer be working so closely with his co-stars. He added: "The experience I’ve had here is incomparable and to try and match it by going to another place like this, it would be diminished returns.
"I have settled into the fact and come to terms with the fact that chances are I probably never will work with Georgia again, Millie again, Jane again, Ben [Price - Nick Tilsley] again, all of these wonderful actors I’ve had the joy of working with, in such close proximity and with such frequency. To realise that is upsetting."
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