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Corrie's Amanda Barrie says she would be axed from soap if she'd come out in the 80s
Coronation Street icon Amanda Barrie is convinced she would have been sacked from the ITV soap if she had come out as a lesbian back in the 80s.The 86-year-old actress is known for her portrayal of Alma Halliwell on the Cobbles throughout the 80s before she finally left the long-standing show in 2001.What viewers didn’t know at the time was that the starlet was secretly living a double life as a gay woman until she opened up about her sexuality in 2003.Now, more than 20 years after she left the soap, the actress has revealed that she refused to publicly confirm her sexuality due to fears that some of her co-stars would have refused to work with her for being gay.Speaking on the Conversation Street podcast, the blonde bombshell confessed how terrified she was of being outed during her time on the show.She told listeners: “Every week I would come up to the office. They'd go, ‘You’re coming out.’ [I’d say] Am I? [and they’d say] ’Yeah, they’ve got this thing on you.’“I spent a fortune on solicitors because believe me if that had happened to me at that time, they would not have kept me in Coronation Street and I will stand by that.”“Not because of them [the producers] but because of people, who shall be nameless, who would’ve said, ‘I'm not working with her’.Luckily, the show has come on leaps and bounds from where it was during the 80s as the show now celebrates all sexualities and boasts their diversity on screen.She went on: “Now, I fall about, I said, ‘Bloody hell, are they opening a gay club in Coronation Street now?’“What’s going on? How many are they? They're all coming out.
