Melissa Johns, who has appeared in Coronation Street and Grantchester, says she has spent years hating her body but is finally at peace as she prepares to become a mum
A pregnant Coronation Street star has been left heartbroken over cruel jibes about her disability.
Melissa Johns, who starred as Kate Connor’s girlfriend Imogen Pascoe in the ITV soap, has revealed that pregnancy has helped her to finally love her body after years of self-loathing.
The announcement on social media that she and her husband Dan Hampton were expecting a baby led to an outpouring of congratulatory messages and made her reassess her relationship with her body.
Born without a right forearm or hand, 35-year-old Melissa, who has also featured in Coronation Street and Adolescence, recalls: “I was eight when I really started to feel I was different. We were playing tag in the playground and someone said, ‘If you touch Melissa, you’ve got Melissa disease.’ It was like a punch to my stomach.”
At the age of six, she appeared in the local newspaper under the headline ‘Girl with one arm rides bike’. “Some of the other children would scream and run away when they saw me,” she adds.
What shocked her even more was the ignorance displayed by adults. Despite being blissfully happy with Dan, a senior transport planner, she shares: “On our honeymoon we had people saying to Dan right in front of me ‘Do you not mind?’ (referring to her disability) and one man called me ‘a cripple’.”
However, now that she’s pregnant, she says people’s attention is focused on her bump. “People have commented on my body all my life. Either it’s something horrible or something about me being inspirational,” reports the Mirror.
“But now people are talking about my body in a lovely way,” she says. “For once in my life it’s not about my disability, it’s about my bump.”
The disability activist announced her pregnancy to her online followers last month, sharing a beach photo with 36-year-old Dan – her husband whom she wed in her native Herefordshire last year – tenderly holding her baby bump.
“I have a strong history of loathing my body,” she confesses. “It came from society telling me that my body was wrong. But there is so much positivity around pregnant bodies, and now I really do very much like what I see when I look in the mirror. It feels lovely.”
Like many first-time mums, Melissa experiences both anticipation and apprehension, but when asked how she will manage, she responds, “That just adds an extra layer of anxiety to the pressure that all first-time mums feel.
“We’re all worrying, how does this work? And on top of that I’m thinking, ‘What about when my husband is at work – will I be able to find a one-handed pram that I can collapse with one arm? How will I get the pram in and out of the car on my own? How will I drink a cup of coffee with my friends while holding the baby?'”.
“I feel like saying, ‘I don’t know yet, I haven’t worked it out, but I will find a way.'”.
Her steely resolve has certainly been a driving force in her life. A pivotal moment occurred in her twenties when she watched old camcorder footage of herself as a young girl at a family gathering.
“I saw this happy little girl dancing and spinning, without a care in the world and thought, ‘I’m so sorry for the life I’m giving you,'” Melissa remembers.
On dates, she would conceal her arm, revealing, “It would get to the third date and I’d have to tell them that I’d got one arm. I’d see that as winning, that I’d hidden it so well. I needed to control how people saw me. I thought that part of my body was ugly and they shouldn’t have to look at it.
“Now I know that winning is having a wonderful husband, where my disability doesn’t even come into play.”
Have you joined Threads? Follow Daily Star to keep up to date on all things showbiz here
Want all the biggest Showbiz and TV news straight to your inbox? Sign up for our free Daily Star Showbiz newsletter
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
