Coronation Street star Alex Bain has revealed he is engaged to girlfriend Mollie Lockwood - a year after popping the question. The actor, best known for playing Simon Barlow in the ITV soap, asked his girlfriend the all-important question in October last year and kept it secret from their families until Christmas when they announced the happy news.
The loved-up pair met three years ago, in October 2019, when Mollie was auditioning for a performing arts college in the North West. Despite being in different years, love appeared to blossom when they got the chance to do a scene together during an acting class.
"We did a duologue together and I honestly couldn’t take my eyes off her," Alex, who has grown up on screens having joined Corrie 14 years ago, told OK! Magazine as they exclusively revealed their happy news to the publication.
Three years after that moment, Alex decided the time was right, on a romantic night out in Chester, to pop the question on their two-year anniversary. "We had a lovely meal, then went back to our hotel, took a couple of bottles of bubbly up to our room and watched the sunset from the balcony," he told OK!
"That’s when I just asked her. I thought, ‘If I don’t do it now, I’ll keep getting more and more nervous!’ I was pretty certain she’d say yes, but I was still bricking it!"
Asked why it felt like the right time, the soap actor sweetly said: "I’m a big believer in making that move as soon as you know it’s the right person, and I’ve known that Mollie is my person pretty much since the day we met. She’s got my heart and soul already, so why not seal the deal? I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else."
The engaged couple shared they are currently in the process of trying to find somewhere to live in Chester as it's close to where Mollie is from and they also have plans to start a family. When asked if they've envisaged starting a family together Alex, who is already has a daughter, said: "I’d love that. Mollie would be an incredible mum."
But Mollie added: "I’m sure we’ll have children in the future. Not quite yet, though – we’ve got to both finish our performance training and we’ll get married first."
And their big day it looks set to be a big Corrie affair. "We’re like a proper family," he said of his co-stars to OK! "I definitely want my on-screen mum and dad Jane Danson [Leanne Battersby], Chris Gascoyne [Peter Barlow], and some of the younger members of the cast there.
"I love Jack James Ryan [Jacob Hay], Elle Mulvaney [Amy Barlow] and Millie Gibson [Kelly Neelan] because we’re all roughly the same age so we support each other. And of course Bill [Roache, who plays Ken Barlow]. He’s an absolute legend so it’d be amazing to have him there."
Back in July, Alex gushed over his wife-to-be as they headed off to the beach and posed for some cute night-time snaps on the sand during a trip to Reus, a city in the province of Tarragona, in Catalonia, Spain. One image showed Alex picking Mollie up into his arms with the setting sun in the background and the waves rolling in behind them. And they couldn't get enough of each other, with the lovebirds planting a sweet kiss on each other's lips.
The dad-of-one could be seen wearing an open linen shirt and beige shorts as he stood barefoot in the water with Mollie donning a blue-and-white two-piece crop top and shorts set while holding a Louis Vuitton handbag. The second photo showed Mollie posing solo in the same spot, with her sunglasses scarping back her wavy locks.
Captioning the photos to his thousands of followers, Alex wrote: "Our first night in Spain. Someone told us beach pictures look cool." An identical post was also made by Mollie with Alex's co-star among the first to comment.
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