PRIDE OF BRITAIN
Closer caught up with the stars celebrating the bravery and achievements of people all over the UK
HELEN: ‘Men are hard work!’
She split with her footballer fiancé, Scott Sinclair, last summer after 13 years together. Now, Helen Flanagan reveals she’s back on the dating scene – and may already have someone “special” in her life.
She tells Closer, “I wouldn’t want to say if I was dating or not, but yes I feel like everyone likes to have someone. It’s nice. I’ve never actually been single. I remember Scott and I split up when I was about 22 for six months, but that’s it.”
And after meeting Scott, with whom she shares three children – Matilda, eight, Delilah, five, and two-year-old Charlie – when she was just 19, Helen, now 33, says she’s enjoying dating in her thirties.
She adds, “I think you feel so much more confident in yourself in your thirties. Men are hard work, anyway, and they are less… Well, they can still be idiots, but they’re less so as they get older. Men in their thirties and forties are a little more emotionally mature.”
After joining the dating app Raya in February, Helen says she’s now moved on to “real-life” dating after finding the online dating scene strange.
She admits, “It’s out there [that I tried Raya]. I always find it really weird with dating apps.”
And while she continues to build her career as an influencer around her children, Helen says she won’t rule out a return to Coronation Street – the show in which she played Rosie Webster for 13 years before her departure in 2018.
She says, “I’d love to go back but it’s just not the right time at the moment. We’ll see!”
JAMES: ‘I’m loving being a dad!’
He’s bravely spoken about his struggles with addiction and depression after finding fame on The X Factor in 2012, but now James Arthur is the happiest he has ever been after welcoming daughter Emily last year.
Speaking about fatherhood, James, 35, says, “I’m loving it. I’m sad to have to leave her today, because we were having fun and she’s started to walk a bit.”
James and his girlfriend Jessica Girst – whom he has been dating on and off for 11 years – welcomed Emily last November after tragically losing a baby due to an ectopic pregnancy in 2021.
But James admits he isn’t sure if he and Jessica will expand their brood. He says, “I don’t know… I can’t imagine loving anyone more than [Emily].”
GEMMA: ‘It’s harder to date now’
Last month eagle-eyed fans spotted Gemma Owen at
