Michelle Keegan says she felt pressured into being a pin-up in her early Coronation Street days.
The TV beauty believed she had to take up all the offers to pose for glamorous shoots when she was starting out on the soap in 2008.
But the 33-year-old Our Girl star says she has now learnt to pick and choose what she does.
Asked about being on the cover of a lads’ mag back then, Michelle said: “It wasn’t something that I necessarily wanted to do. I remember feeling very shy because I was really young.
“Now that I’m older, I realise that it is OK to say no to something that you don’t feel 100% happy with.
Michelle Keegan says she felt pressured into being a pin-up in her early Corrie days (Image: PA)
“You don’t have to do it because you think you have to do it.
“But I will say, this is no reflection on Coronation Street. Everyone did it at that time.”
She says she found it difficult dealing with her overnight success.
Tina McIntyre was killed off by Corrie bosses back in 2014 (Image: PA)
Speaking to Cosmopolitan, Michelle added: “It happens very quickly on a soap. It was scary. Growing up in that was very hard and I let a lot of comments get to me.”
Since leaving the cobbles, Michelle has gone on to front a number of major TV shows, such as Our Girl and Brassic.
Speaking to the Mirror in 2016, the starlet revealed she was glad her character had been killed off on the soap – ruining any chance of a Corrie return.
Michelle spoke about her experience in the new issue of Cosmopolitan (Image: Cosmopolitan)
She said: “If the door had been left open at Corrie … I would have thought, ‘It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work out, I can always go back after a year’.
“I could have stayed at Corrie my whole life. It’s like a family there. But I thought if I didn’t leave when I did, I never would have left because it was so comfortable.”
Michelle added: “But the way things are I can’t do that, so I have to go out and find work. I have to push myself now and go for lots of auditions. I’m a jobbing actress. It means I go to meetings and I enjoy that buzz.”
The August issue of Cosmopolitan is on sale from July 2.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
