Former Corrie star Melissa Johns wowed as she shared a photo of herself on holiday. The actor, who played who played Kate Connor's ex girlfriend Imogen Pascoe in Coronation Street, posted a throwback picture of herself in Mykonos, Greece, in a red swimsuit with a black lacy sheer dress worn over the top.
In the picture she gazed over her shoulder as the camera captured the view from behind. Melissa cut to the chase as she said her Instagram offering was to celebrate her derriere in the snap.
"I’ll cut the w***y caption*" she explained. "And go straight in with 'I’m being vain and I like my bum in this photo.'" She added: "*Just be you hun *Felt cute, my delete later. *Spring is just over my shoulder."
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Her followers approved of the post, responding with flame emojis. Former EastEnder actress Kacey Ainsworth replied with a winking emoji: "Cheeky." Fellow former Corrie star Bhavna Limbachia shared a flame and celebratory raising hands emojis and stokiesimon told her: "Feel cute, don't delete, buns for days Huns."
Melissa, who has a history of body dysmorphia, has been advocating body positivity and female sexuality after finding herself having to come to terms with her body becoming public property. In 2018 her iCloud was hacked and explicit photos of her were released online.
Last year the star, who was born without her right forearm and hand, took ownership of her story by touring her one-woman show to fight back at 'body shaming' and 'slut shaming' within society. The show, Snatched, championed female sexuality and explored the taboo of sex and disability.
"For me the worst thing was to be seen without any clothes on and that's exactly what happened," she told us previously. "But if this does happen to someone else I want them to feel angry that it happened, but I don't want them to feel ashamed about their body. The last thing I want is for them to feel ashamed."
She said about her experience: "I had two choices. It was either hide away and pretend it didn't happen, or for it to be a catalyst to speak out about slut shaming and body shaming." Melissa' had a sharp realisation in her late 20s, after she watched video footage of herself as a child, that she deserved to be treated better by herself.
In 2020 Melissa played Hannah Taylor in the powerful BBC drama Life, following the lives of residents living in a Manchester house divided into flats, and in 2021 she was among the famous faces competing in Celebrity MasterChef. She also plays Miss Scott in ITV’s Granchester and made her West End debut last year in Henry V at Donmar Warehouse, alongside Game of Thrones heartthrob Kit Harrington.
The BBC Radio 4 drama In My Own Skin was penned by Melissa and Coronation Street writer Debbie Oates, based on Melissa's experience of having her phone hacked. "There are things we can't change and sometimes the only freedom we have is how we respond to it," she said.
"I was in bits thinking 'the world is going to to see you naked.' I thought I would lose my work. I forced myself to read the things written about me and I felt like I had to have the last word here. I'll always be angry that my privacy was disrespected but I no longer have a feeling of shame."
Melissa, who founded the pioneering drama project Triple C - The Creative Confidence Collective - with Corrie star Cherylee Houston, who plays Izzy Armstrong in the ITV soap, shared an inspirational message after her private photos of herself with her ex partner were leaked.
She hit back on social media by saying: "It will take a lot more than a few leaked photos to to stop me fighting for equality and the mainstream representation of women of all different shapes and sizes.”
And sharing a carefree image of herself leaping into the air on a beach while making a peace sign, she said: “If any good has come out of this, it is to show that women with all different types of body shapes and sizes send photos, have sex lives, engage in intimate exchanges in the same way as everybody else.”
Four months after the hacking incident, Melissa posed for an empowering photo shoot to challenge perceptions of disability and to show people with disabilities are beautiful and sexy and should be used in fashion campaigns. She teamed up for the shoot with Models of Diversity the campaign for more diversity in modelling.
Speaking about her pride in the photo shoot, she said: “I am not a sexual fetish. I am not a tick box to prove equal opportunities. I am not even here just to show representation.
"I’m an individual that has a different body shape from the ‘norm’ and I have the right to so be raw, sexy, intimate and real. And most of all, I have the right to see myself that way. These images make me feel good. They allow me to feel empowered by my own body.”
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