Coronation Street star Georgia Taylor has said she is 'heartbroken' over Charlie De Melo's decision to leave the ITV soap. The actress, who plays Toyah Battersby, has spoken about the Imran Habeeb actor's exit for the first time.
The actor is set to head off to pastures new and look for new challenges away from the Corrie cobbles after five years of playing the famous street's lawyer. Charlie hasn't confirmed his plans to leave and the long-running soap are remaining tight-lipped on when and how Imran will move on from life on the cobbles.
But Georgia has now shared how she feels about her on-screen husband waving goodbye to her and the rest of the Corrie cast and crew.
READ MORE: ITV Corrie stars inundate Toyah actress Georgia Taylor with compliments as she gets 'holiday ready'
When asked how she feels about it all, the soap star, 41, told the Manchester Evening News and other press: "Heartbroken. I absolutely adore him. He's been a dream, an absolute dream. We have been together on the show for three and a half years but in the last year, since we've done all the stuff with Seb's trial, we've been pretty consistently busy and most of our stuff has been together and it's just been a joy."
She went on to gush: "He's so funny so we laugh a lot but he is honestly one of the most supportive people I have ever worked with and even now, we're still in touch obviously, he's texting me, 'How did the day go? Are you OK?' He's just a team player.
"And I mean look at him, there's no complaints there either. He's beautiful. He's been amazing but I'm so excited to see what he's going to do next because I think the opportunities are going to be endless for him. He's going to fly."
But as one door closes, as they say, another opens and as Charlie leaves as Imran, there's a rather big return around the corner. Coronation Street announced at the end of last month that Geoffrey David Nugent - aka Spider - will be treading the cobbles once more this summer.
It has been more than two decades since the character, played by Martin Hancock, made his debut in the ITV soap. Martin will resume the role he played as Emily Bishop's eco-warrior nephew between 1997 and 2003 next month, appearing on our screens in July. Viewers will remember him as the on/off boyfriend of Toyah Battersby, Spider left Coronation Street in 2003, when he headed to London to start afresh with Toyah. They later separated with Spider moving to Peru, while after a failed marriage Toyah returned to be with her family in 2016.
With life having moved on, has Spider held on to the ideals of his youth and has he come back for one final attempt to rekindle his love with Toyah or is it something else that brings him back to the street?
Speaking about founding out about Spider - and Martin's return - Georgia said: "Wow, I was shocked. But then it kind of made sense. Of course, you'd bring him back, why wouldn't you bring him back? I know a lot of our stuff has been on Classic Corrie recently and I get tweets all the time from people saying 'bring back Spider'. People love that character and they loved us together so when he said it I thought that makes sense.
"And when it was announced, you saw it, the reaction was phenomenal and it's going to be a real shift and when you've been working with one person for so many years and then you're suddenly working with someone else, it's a different energy. But luckily we do have that history and even though it was a long time ago, when I've seen him since it just felt natural and normal."
