A former Coronation Street actress has opened up about her “nightmare” experience since leaving the cobbles. Georgia May Foote portrayed Katy Armstrong in the ITV soap from 2010 until 2015. The 34-year-old went on to bag second place on hit BBC dancing show Strictly Come Dancing later that year, alongside her professional partner Giovanni Pernice.
Georgia has since opened up about having difficulty finding acting work since her stint on the Weatherfield cobbles. The soap star said she’s endured the “quietest” period of her career in recent years.
During an appearance on the Sausage On A Fork podcast, the actress shared: “I came back [to the UK from filming in Serbia] in the December of 2020 and I just realised, ‘Oh my God, there’s no work.’
“Everything that got stopped filming in the UK then got put on a back burner, and then there was a backlog of what was about to start filming. Then everything behind that took four years to come out, then we had the writers’ strikes.
“It’s just been a nightmare. And that’s why this has been the quietest I’ve ever been in my life. I think a lot of actors around the world will say the exact time.”
Georgia decided to open a nail salon business as a way to bring in some extra money during the quiet period. However, she suffered a devastating blow in June, when the business burned down, and she subsequently started a fundraising page to revive the company.
In a post on Instagram at the time, she explained: “Now as some of you may know I’ve been a nail technician now for the past four years alongside my acting.
“Unfortunately my beautiful little studio was affected by a huge fire within the storage world unit in Middleton last night. Not only has my business burnt down, but so has many other peoples. Along with peoples most loved possessions. My heart goes out to them all.”
She added: “Even though as beauticians we can move into a new space, our stock and tools, which we spend years collecting have all gone. We can no longer work.
“My friends and fellow beauticians have to literally start again. With no way of even making the money to buy these tools. Some of them have children.
“I am asking if you could please help us all by just giving a little towards helping my friends rebuild their businesses. We would be eternally grateful. Fire is the most devastating thing. Thousands of pounds of stock has gone in seconds.”
Speaking on the podcast, she explained further on the heartbreaking situation. She said: “We weren’t allowed back in there and nothing has been salvaged.”
“I did start a fundraiser to raise some money for these ladies to help us get back on our feet and build our stock back up again that we’ve lost.”
Georgia also revealed that she still has “jobs coming in”. She said: “It’s passed the £12,000 mark. I’m really happy. It makes me really emotional to speak about it. I just know it’s a lot of women’s only income.
“I’m lucky that I still do my voiceovers and I do have jobs coming in. But, at the same time, I lost a lot of money in that fire.”