Helen Flanagan has opened up about one of the most controversial storylines of her Coronation Street career, and revealed how a co-star spoke out behind the scenes when things crossed a line.

The actress, who joined the ITV soap at just nine years old as Rosie Webster, says Alison King, who plays Carla Connor, was furious over how young Helen was being portrayed during a disturbing plot that saw Rosie groomed by her teacher, John Stape.

At the time, Helen was just 16, only a year older than her character Rosie, and suddenly found herself at the centre of an adult storyline that still makes people uncomfortable today.

Speaking to The Mirror, Helen recalled how Alison didn’t stay quiet about it. She said: ‘Was it morally right that I was expected to parade about in my knickers like some mad nymphomaniac when I was still just a teenager? Alison King, who plays Carla Connor, once kicked off in the green room, saying how disgusting it was that they were sexualising me when I was a young girl. I didn’t fully comprehend what she was talking about at the time. I do now. I get it.’

The storyline, which eventually revealed John Stape (Graeme Hawley) as a serial killer, pushed Rosie into increasingly dark territory, including an affair with her teacher, followed by a terrifying kidnapping plot once the truth came out. While the drama made gripping TV, Helen admits the experience left her feeling uneasy long after the cameras stopped rolling.

She explained that, as a teenager, she didn’t feel equipped to question what she was being asked to do. ‘I had to do kissing and bedroom scenes with a man a lot older than me. Obviously, the actor (Graeme Hawley) was lovely, but I don’t think it would happen now. When you’re 16, you don’t really know what’s going on, and I was just happy to get the big storylines.’

Looking back, she says some scenes didn’t sit right at all. ‘But I had scenes as Rosie, which didn’t always sit comfortably with me. I felt minging post-shoot.’

Helen believes the industry has changed massively since then, especially with people speaking out against the sexualisation and mistreatment of women in the entertainment industry ‘Everything has changed now, which I’m glad about. They wouldn’t write it in quite the same way all these years later and since the Me Too movement.’

Born in Bury, Greater Manchester, Helen describes herself as ‘a very normal, northern working-class girl’ and says Coronation Street completely changed her life. She left the soap in 2012, returned briefly between 2017 and 2018, and isn’t ruling out another comeback one day.

Now 35, Helen says the contrast between her Corrie years and her current work couldn’t be clearer. She’s currently appearing in The Memory of Water at Bolton’s Octagon Theatre and says having an intimacy coordinator on set has made all the difference. ‘Back then you just got on with it,’ she said of her soap experience.

Importantly, Helen is clear that there’s a difference between being sexualised and choosing to express herself.

Today, she says owning her image and sexuality feels empowering, because it’s on her terms. ‘I post sexy pictures. I work for different lingerie brands. I enjoy that. I like to feel sexy. I like to feel empowered and in control. That’s the difference.’

But she admits that hasn’t always been the case, adding: ‘I’ve turned up to some shoots which I didn’t know would be so “sexy”, thinking it would be unprofessional to object and been in tears.’