HEARTBREAKING: The deeply moving STORY of Coronation Street icon Craig Charles’ ILL-FATED MARRIAGE to Emmerdale star wife

Craig Charles used to be married to an Emmerdale actress (Image: Getty)

Coronation Street star Craig Charles used to be married to a very famous Emmerdale actress who went on to become a Hollywood star, welcoming a son together before the doomed nuptials sadly fell apart. The Red Dwarf actor, 61, who played Lloyd Mullaney in ITV soap Corrie, might have settled down with his current wife Jackie Fleming in 1999, but in 1984 he tied the knot with actress Cathy Tyson.

Cathy starred in rival soap Emmerdale as single mum Andrea Hayworth back in 2007, as well as landing roles in everything from Grange Hill to Holby City. Her more recent roles have been in Death in Paradise, Dune: Prophecy and Vera.

The couple’s marriage lasted only five years, during which time they welcomed son Jack together before divorcing in 1989. Their marriage wasn’t a happy one, with Cathy claiming: “I just want to be happy. That’s the most important thing for me. And my marriage certainly didn’t make me feel happy. I used to blame Craig but I try not to any more.”

Cathy Tyson was married to Craig for five years (Image: Getty)

She said: “My divorce was the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. The divorce itself didn’t bring me down. I got divorced because I thought it was the only way forward.”

The Band of Gold star added she “wasn’t treated properly” in her marriage and “went through a lot”, adding to The Mirror: “I went through a lot in that marriage at a very young age. And I took on a lot of responsibility when I wasn’t ready for it. I used to feel a lot of guilt about my marriage not succeeding and Jack not having his dad at home, but I don’t anymore. It’s not my fault the marriage didn’t succeed.”

It seems Cathy held no ill will towards her ex-husband, as in 2006 she wished him well at the height of his battle with drug addiction, telling the Mirror that an exposé into his struggle might be “what he [needed]” at the time.

Craig married his second wife Jackie in 1999 (Image: Getty)

She said: “Maybe it really is for the best. I really hope it is. I hope he’s okay.”

Now Craig is sober and happily married to his second wife Jackie, with whom he shares two children – Nellie-Rose and Anna-Jo. Craig has confessed he is “dead lucky” to have Jackie by his side through his addiction battle, and said his family gave him “a reason to get better”.

The pair were married by a one-legged judge in Mexico with a mariachi band playing, joking with The Times: “I thought they would be playing guitars, but it turned out to be seven trumpets and a tuba. We were trying to eat our wedding dinner and it was a real cacophony, and after about three tunes we were like: ‘Alright, let’s leave it there shall we?’”