Sue Cleaver: It is freeing to no longer have fear of alcohol

Sue Cleaver has spoken about her relationship with alcohol (Ian West/PA)

Coronation Street actress Sue Cleaver says she no longer has “any fear around alcohol” and does not think she is dependent on it.

Best known for playing the outspoken and uncomplicated Eileen Grimshaw on the ITV soap since 2000, Cleaver has previously been outspoken about the health benefits of cutting down on her wine consumption and its impact on her weight loss.

Cleaver is Prima’s November issue cover star, and she spoke to the magazine about her drink intake.

“I don’t have any fear around alcohol any more, and that is really freeing,” she said.

“I never imagined getting to that state. I thought I had a dependency. I thought I couldn’t get by without having a glass of wine at night. I thought life wouldn’t be great without a glass of wine.

Sue Cleaver was interviewed for the November issue of Prima (Prima/Nicky Johnston/PA)

“It would be absolutely great without wine. I just thought it wouldn’t. It’s the thinking around it that is the problem.”

The 61-year-old also reflected on her age.

Cleaver said: “There are so many people my age who I speak to that are depressed about reaching 60. You feel like this is the end of the line, that everything goes down from here.

“I absolutely don’t feel that way. I just feel like the world really is my oyster now, and there’s so much available out there. There’s so much that you can do.”

She also said she “really struggled with my identity” when she was younger, as she was adopted.

Sue Cleaver graces the cover of Prima magazine’s November issue (Prima/Nicky Johnston/PA)

Cleaver added: “My family are my family, my mum is my mum, whether the DNA is involved or not. They are such a big part of me.

“But a lot of adopted children have this sense that something is a little bit different.”

During her stint on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! in 2022, the same series as former health secretary Matt Hancock, Cleaver told how she had reconciled with her birth mother.

She said she was in her early 20s when she appeared at the Royal Exchange in Manchester and met an actor who thought she looked like his wife, and he asked when she was born.

The man then rang his wife saying “I’ve found her”, she said.

Cleaver also said her family is “bizarrely interconnected” to other Coronation Street stars.

She said Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt, is godmother to one of her half-sisters, and the other half-sister’s husband, John Bowe, appeared on the cobbles as Duggie Ferguson.