Secrets and sadness
Lisa Riley has a confession – after years of turning down: I’m a Celeb… the Emmerdale star admits she would consider going into the jungle. Here, she reveals on and off-screen secrets – and the recent death that rocked her...
The popular actress, best-known as the fabulously loud Mandy Dingle, turns 48 this Summer and she reckons a stint with the creepy crawlies could be just what she needs to head off a mid-life crisis. It won’t be this year though, as Lisa has too much going on in her life right now, including her latest storyline, which sees Mandy trying to help her cousin Chas through her breast cancer diagnosis, while coping with the fact that Chas also enjoyed a secret kiss with Mandy’s partner Paddy Kirk. ‘It all explodes and I mean explodes when she finds out!’ Lisa laughs.
The actress, who lives in Yorkshire with her fiancé Al, talks to us about finding love, her guilty pleasures and the heartbreak behind her current storyline...
Hi Lisa, 10 years with Al – what’s the secret of happiness?
I gravitate to people who are kooky and independent and Al is both! That’s why I love him and that’s why he loves me. Also, the richest soil of a relationship comes from a little bit of distance. Being together 24/7? No way. I’d be off doing something I shouldn’t! The thought of going: ‘Oh yes, come on, let’s go and watch Netflix together’ makes me sick in my mouth! That’s not for me.
Things are not going quite so well on screen though are they…
She reacts very quietly and calmly (when she discovers Paddy has kissed her cousin), but it’s utter bravado, she’s actually completely broken. What she doesn’t know is that fundamentally it was nothing, so she puts two and two together and makes 96. She worries that she’s not enough, which is heart-breaking for any woman.
Could you forgive a boyfriend if he kissed someone else?
It would literally be game over. I think a full kiss and secrecy is 100 per cent worse than intercourse. I wouldn’t tolerate a single kiss and I don’t like plotting. The trust would be gone and that would end up making you neurotic.
That’s hopefully not something you and Al have to worry about…
He knows my views on fidelity – as placid as I am at home, I think my inner Mandy Dingle would come out!
Unlike Mandy, you are teetotal. How did your life change when you gave up drinking?
All the BS in my life was gone. When you drink, you tolerate more. For example, I’m not very good at baby showers, I find them pretty boring. My friend had one recently and I said to her: ‘You’ll probably get an hour out of me.’ I got there and they were all on the prosecco and I thought to myself: ‘I’m just going to disappear.’ And I did. I showed my
