Sue Cleaver has played Coronation Street’s feisty Eileen Grimshaw for 25 years, but as her time on the cobbles comes to an end she reveals what’s in store for the much-loved character, and it’s probably not what you think

Sue Cleaver has played Corrie’s fiesty Eileen Grimshaw for 25 years(Image: Supplied)

Playing feisty Eileen Grimshaw for 25 years means that actress Sue Cleaver loves her as much as Corrie fans. Despite leaving the cobbles in the next few weeks, Sue, 61, wants nothing but the best for Streetcars switchboard operator Eileen.

So, when soap bosses asked her if she wanted a happy ending for the mum of brothers Jason and Todd, the answer was a resounding yes. What they didn’t know was that she had been considering a new life chapter for four years and had already secretly designed her character’s departure.

Sue tells The Mirror: “There was always the risk that they might have killed me off, but they were supportive and said ‘Eileen’s a big part of the show.’ They asked what kind of ending I wanted, and I said I didn’t want to call it a day, because I love the place. I said I wanted a happy ending. Basically, the journey Eileen is taking is pretty much what I’m choosing to do.

“It’s new adventures. Just because you’re a certain age doesn’t mean that you have to stop, that your chances in life are finished, that you’re stuck and that you’re heading to your ageing days. There’s still a lot of life left in women my age, and we just need to grasp it and get out there and challenge ourselves and get out of our comfort zones. So, the story, in a sense, is following my own departure.”

Revealing that she has been considering leaving for four years, Sue says that last year she contacted former Coronation Street star Ryan Thomas, who spent 16 years playing her screen son Jason. Ryan left the show in 2016 and, in 2021, announced his retirement from acting. But the two have remained good friends, and he agreed to come back after the personal plea from Sue.

Gail (Helen Worth) storms into the Rovers and accuses Eileen (Sue Cleaver) of gossiping about her – also pictured Jason (Ryan Thomas) and Sarah (Tina O’Brien).(Image: ITV)

“I asked Ryan to come back over a year ago,” she reveals. “He had no intention of coming back into Corrie, but last April I said ‘look Ryan, I need you to do me a favour. I’ve not told work yet, but I’m going to leave and I’d really like you to come back and take me out.’ And bless him, he said: ‘well I can’t refuse that can I?’ “It was really special and lovely. I felt very supported having him there with me on that final day. We’ve both got busy lives, but we’ve always stayed in touch. I’m very fond of him.”

To Eileen’s delight, Jason turns up out of the blue from his home in Thailand at the funeral of her sister Julie Carp (Katy Cavanagh) later this month. With Eileen growing increasingly disenchanted with her life in Weatherfield, she makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to go back with him. Sue says: “I’m at a stage where I thought it was important to forge a new path for myself. My responsibilities as a parent had ended, and it was the right time for a change.

“It had been in my mind for the last four years to leave, so there’s been a lot of preparation and planning and thinking about it and making sure, but it definitely feels right. It’s exciting times. I’m not scared about the future. The only scary thing was making the decision that it was time. But once I’d made the decision, I knew it was the right thing for me.”

Steve McDonald [Simon Gregson] and Eileen Grimshaw [Sue Cleaver] work together at Streetcars(Image: ITV)

Straight-talking Eileen made an immediate impact when she joined the local taxi firm in 2000. “She was cocky, but she had a very big heart,” Sue says. “She was every woman. Everybody knows an Eileen. Everybody has an Eileen living on their street, and I think a lot of women could relate to her. She brought her boys up single-handedly, she’d been treated badly by men, she was a worrier, she was independent.”

The much-loved character has clocked up a string of failed relationships, including Jesse Chadwick, who ended up with her arch enemy Gail Platt and serial killer Pat Phelan. Most recently, she has been dating undertaker George Shuttleworth. When her terminally ill sister Julie took her own life, Eileen was horrified when she was suspected of having a hand in it. This adds to her increasing dissatisfaction with George, triggering her move to pastures new. Sue says: “With Julie passing, she starts to ask herself, ‘Why am I here? I don’t have to be here. Everyone has grown up; everyone has got their own life. This is my time.’”

Sue, who starred in Dinnerladies and Band of Gold before joining Coronation Street, lives in Manchester with her husband, TV lighting technician Brian Owen. Her son Elliot, 29, lives nearby. In the past few years, she has taken time away from the cobbles to appear in I’m a Celebrity and a tour of the musical Sister Act. She is also an occasional panellist on Loose Women and recently wrote her memoir A Work in Progress.

She hasn’t decided what she will do next, but wouldn’t rule out following her co-star Jack P Shepherd into Celebrity Big Brother. “I just don’t know,” she muses. “I’m open. If it sounded fun, I’d say yes, but if it doesn’t, I’m not going to do it. Strictly looks too much like hard work for me – I’ve got the elegance of an elephant – so I couldn’t see myself doing that at the moment.

Eileen (Sue Grimshaw) has had her fair share of doomed relationships including with killer Pat Phelan (Connor McIntyre)

“But I have no goal. I have no plan. I might go back to school, I’d like to travel more, and I’m having talks about various projects in the future, but I’m only going to be doing things that I really fancy. At this stage in my life, I wanna have fun and a bit of freedom.” While Sue didn’t want big leaving do she says: “Everyone was saying to me ‘are you going to have a party?’ I’m like ‘oh my God, I’m 61, I can’t be doing with parties.’

“And then Antony Cotton said he would ‘sort something.’ He booked a private dining room at the Ivy just for the people that I worked directly with – the Grimshaws and the Street Cars boys. And it was fabulous.” After Sue filmed her final scenes, she was presented with flowers, plus, randomly, an elephant statue from the Grimshaw set. She explains: “When I first moved into the Grimshaws’ house, there was this big elephant ornament. I hated it. I used to say ‘oh my God, it’s disgusting, can somebody just accidentally drop it.’

“Then, as time went on, it became ‘be careful with that elephant, don’t knock the elephant over.’ I got really attached to it and when I was leaving, I said ‘make sure nothing happens to it when I’m not here.’ “On the last day, when they gave me my flowers and presents, suddenly a ribbon-bedecked elephant arrived. I’m its custodian. So, if Eileen ever comes back, the elephant will come back with her!”

(R) Eileen (Sue Cleaver) and (L) Gail Rodwell [Helen Worth) during one of their many screen fallouts(Image: We Love TV)

Eileen’s fieriest moments:

Eileen Grimshaw doesn’t take prisoners, and, as well as her famous spats with her arch-enemy Gail Platt, countless other Coronation Street residents have been on the receiving end of her fiery temper. “I’m told there have been 19 slaps, most of them were for her son Jason, and there were a few punches,” says Sue. “I can’t even remember them all – how horrifying is that, that’s it has become the norm!

“I remember Eileen once hit Steve McDonald, and I nearly knocked (the actor) Simon Gregson out. This was in the days before health and safety. They didn’t get a stunt person in. They just said ‘slap him’. So, I slapped him and he was literally seeing stars. There was another scene with Simon and Craig Charles, where I had to bang their heads together. I got it a bit wrong and actually did it, and it was really hard. I felt awful – you could just hear this loud crack – the sound was terrible!”

Eileen has also punched Janice Battersby, slapped Pat Phelan and ended up in hospital herself back in 2012, when she was accidentally smacked in the face during a fight scene with Lesley Kershaw, played by Judy Holt. Sue hit the floor and lost consciousness. “I was knocked out cold,” she recalls. “They still used the sound and sent me to hospital!”