Coronation Street’s Simon Gregson has shared a “beautiful” message to his wife Emma as he shared a personal update. The soap star has portrayed the hilarious Steve McDonald on the cobbles for over three decades, after joining the soap in 1989.
Steve has been a much-loved character on the soap over the years, known best for his comedic side and history of unsuccessful love affairs. The character has been at the centre of the drama on the cobbles in recent weeks after he announced his secret relationship to troublemaker Cassie Plummer, played by Claire Sweeney.
Off-screen, Simon’s life is very different to his Coronation Street counterpart. He shares three children with his wife, former Hollyoaks actress Emma Gleave.
The two married in 2010 and are proud parents to Alfie, born in 2007, Henry, born in 2009 and Teddy, born in 2016. The family-of-five live in Cheshire.
In a recent post on Instagram, Simon shared a selfie of his wife and himself to celebrate her birthday. He wrote: “Happy birthday to the most beautiful girl ever, period, full stop, no come backs” with a red love heart emoji.
Fans rushed to the comments to send their own birthday wishes. Simon’s Corrie co-star Sally Carman, who plays Abi Webster on the ITV soap, said: “She’s a beauty no doubt about it.”
Kym Marsh, who portrayed Michelle Connor, also added to the comments to wish Emma a “Happy birthday.” One fan made a joke about the heartwarming statement: “Cassie’s gonna be fuming with this.”
Emma fulfilled her lifelong dream of running her own tearoom in 2022 and recently confirmed she had made the decision to hang up her apron. Simon regularly made appearances at the cafe to show his support for his wife.
Morley Tearooms near Wilmslow was flooded by queues of fans who were eager to try some of Emma’s infamous cakes. The tearoom won two Good Food awards, as well as winning rave reviews from customers and critics.
Earlier this year, Emma confirmed she was hanging up her apron at Morley Tearooms after two and a half years. In the statement on the cafe’s Facebook page in June, Emma wrote: “So, it’s true…. My time at the Tea rooms has unfortunately come to an end.”
She added: “I decided to leave due to the new lease not suiting my requirements. It was verbally agreed that I stay until the end of summer.”
She said: “I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the outpouring of love I’ve received over the last couple of days. It’s been extremely humbling and heartwarming to have the support from all of you, you have no idea what it has meant to me.
“I’ve started to take all of your details so I can take you all on my new adventure which will be bigger and better and just down the road. So this is not the end, and this certainly isn’t goodbye.
“I hope you’ll all follow me onto this next exciting project which I’ll update you all on soon. In the meantime, I hope to see you all in the next couple of weeks.”