SAD NEWS: Sue Cleaver leaves Coronation Street after 25 years: “I don’t know where to start again” moves fans deeply!

Sue Cleaver was keen to prove “it’s never too late to invent yourself” when it came to her Coronation Street exit.

The actress, 61, will bow out of the soap next Friday (June 6) after more than two decades in the role as Weatherfield favourite Eileen Grimshaw. Her character comes to a crossroads, questioning what to do with her life and if she’s making the right choices, something Sue resonates with after 25 years on the cobbles.

With Sue herself keen for new adventures, she shared with The Mirror what advice she’d give to troubled Eileen as a life-changing opportunity comes her way. Jason Grimshaw will offer his mother Eileen the chance to leave with him as he prepares to head back to Thailand.

While Eileen is torn over the big change, having lived on the Cobbles since 2000, actress Sue told us why the exit was “perfect” and what she wanted. Sue decided to leave the show a year ago, having been thinking about it for some time. With her getting a huge input into how Eileen bows out, Sue said she was “humbled” by what she was given.

She explained: “I said very much that I would like her to go off to pastures new, you know, to kind of mirror what I’m doing in a sense. And I just think it’s time for a change. So it was perfect.

READ MORE: Coronation Street Jason’s reason for returning exposed – and it’s not to support Eileen

Sue Cleaver was keen to prove ‘it’s never too late to invent yourself’ when it came to her Coronation Street exit(Image: ITV)

“I’m so happy with the ending, and I was so humbled by it and the way it had been written and what it is. I felt very grateful to have such a wonderful ending written. It seemed very, very apt.”

As soon as she knew she was leaving, she wanted co-star Ryan Thomas, who plays son Jason, to be there for the episodes. She shared: “Ryan was there from the start, and he was inconveniently living in Thailand, and it wouldn’t be too far of a jump to expect that if Eileen was going to make a leap, that she would involve her son.

“And so when I decided to leave, like over a year ago, I rang Ryan, and I said, ‘Ryan, I’m going to tell them that I’m going, and if they ask me about exits, I’d really like to say that you’d come back and take me out, but I don’t know whether they’d go for it or not’.

“And he just went, ‘Oh my gosh, of course, I would’, which was so lovely for me. And it was just so nice to have him back and filming those final scenes with him. It just felt like I’d come full circle really.”

Eileen’s decisions and predicament mirror Sue’s own life, where she contemplated new adventures and leaving the show behind after 25 years. “It’s never too late to reinvent yourself,” Sue shared. “It’s never too late to be brave and try something new. You just make little tiny steps, just little tiny things every day to change your routine and step out and be fearless.

Eileen Grimshaw leaves Corrie next week(Image: ITV)

“And so that’s the journey I’m on. And in a sense, yes, Eileen’s mirroring that, stepping out into the unknown.” Discussing her final day on set, Sue said it was “perfect” while she didn’t want a fuss when it came to the final “cut”.

She explained: “It was filmed out of order so my last scene on screen was filmed a few days before my last day so that made it a lot easier. There were a few moments where it hit me and I was like, ‘Oh wow,’ you know, it’s like not so much, the job, but also the people that we take for granted.

“Then you go, ‘Oh God, that’s it. That is the end’. That is strange. But I had a nice dinner out with the Grimshaws and the street car boys on the evening after we’d filmed that final scene, and then we were back in to do other scenes.

“It was a very strange thing. And I very much when I’m going, I’m going, and I don’t like goodbye, so the greatest thing for me was that it was the very end of the day when I finished so I knew I wouldn’t have loads of people in there because I find that sort of thing uncomfortable.

“I had to get on the train because I had some work in London the next morning. And then I woke up on Saturday morning in the hotel and It was a sense of like, ‘yep, that was it. That’s it’. And because it was exactly how I wanted it to be, it felt right.”