Emmerdale and Casualty actress Chelsea Halfpenny’s dreams have come true as she is engaged to her childhood crush James Baxter, 16 years after laying eyes on him for the first time.
The pair met at a drama workshop back when she was 14. She admitted that she instantly liked him but they never got to know each other. As she followed his career, the two eventually met as adults in 2018 and James asked Chelsea on a date six months later.
The couple fell head over heels for each other and James eventually proposed to Chelsea last year.
The former Emmerdale stars seem smitten with each other and an over-the-moon Chelsea spoke to Mirror about their love story.
(Image: Daily Mirror)
She opened up about their initial meeting: “I really fancied him and he did not fancy me at all!”
“He’s a year older and I thought he was really cool but I also remember thinking: ‘Well, no wonder he’s not interested because he’s just so much older than me!’”
“We never kept in touch because he had no interest in me at all. I just really remembered him because I liked him so much.”
(Image: DAILY MIRROR)
After they met, Chelsea landed a role on Byker Grove, the show that launched Ant and Dec to fame, where she stayed for four years.
James began to work on Emmerdale as Arthur Thomas’ half brother Jake Doland, but unfortunately he left the show mere months before Chelsea landed the role of Amy Wyatt in the long running soap.
Chelsea remembered when she started as Val and Eric Pollard’s foster daughter: “When I joined Emmerdale a few people would speak about James because he’d only left a year before.
(Image: BBC)
I knew exactly who they meant because I remembered this gorgeous boy with the spiky hair that I fancied so much.
“Eventually we started to follow each other on Twitter but our paths still never crossed.”
The pair never reconciled until the 2018 National Television Awards. Chelsea attended the BBC medical drama series Casualty and James was with his Still Open All Hours cast.
(Image: BBC Studios/Gary Moyes)
Chelsea reminisced on the moment they met once again: “We bumped into each other, the stars just sort of aligned. It was another six months before we got together and this time it was the other way round. He was chasing me!”
“It was soon after we got together that I told him I’d fancied him as a kid. I don’t think he believed me to start with!”
The perfect pair live in London and recently spent lockdown together.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
