Roxy Shahidi has definitely had some messy romances as Leyla Harding on Emmerdale, but her real love-life has been incredible.
Aside from her on-screen love life, she’s been the target of horror in recent months on the ITV soap, with her character being shot by killer Meena Jutla earlier this year.
Leyla survived to tell the tale, but now she has another drama on her hands – a big secret, but fans are yet to know what it is…
While Leyla has been inundated with drama, 39-year-old Roxy, who joined the ITV soap in 2008 until 2011 before reprising her role in 2013, has had a rather different experience.
The actress is now happily wed to one of her former co-stars, Arsher Ali, and the start of their real-life relationship could have been straight out of a movie in itself.
(Image: Getty Images)
Arsher Ali, who played PC Hard Bains in series 3 of Line of Duty, was absolutely smitten with Roxy and that was clear because he proposed to her just two weeks after they first met in 2007 whilst working on a London play.
Roxy was left gob smacked at the sudden proposal and at first she didn’t even know how to respond.
In 2014 she told The Mirror: “He just looked me in the eye at a cast party and said, ‘Will you marry me?’”
“I didn’t answer and he said, ‘You will be my wife’ and that was it. I didn’t quite know what to make of it because I didn’t know him that well.
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“I knew that he liked me but we hadn’t really said anything. We hadn’t even kissed!”
Roxy confessed she wanted to burst out laughing and say that it was ‘absolutely ridiculous’, but the other part of her wanted to kiss him.
Luckily for bold and brave Arsher, Roxy and him tied ended up tying the knot three years later in 2010 with their friends and family there to celebrate with them.
The Nottingham-based couple proudly welcomed their little girl in 2018 – who they prefer to keep out of the spotlight.
Roxy confessed she was “absolutely terrified” when she found out she was pregnant, but she was delighted with the baby news once she adjusted to it.
Chatting with OK! magazine in 2017, she said: “We had only been trying for a few weeks and I was sure it was going to take us much longer!
“It took a few weeks before I got my head around it but, once I did, I was filled with joy.”
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As if straight out of a soap storyline, Roxy’s Emmerdale co-star Charley Webb worked out Roxy was pregnant before Roxy had even taken a test.
Roxy explained: “We had been working together and she called me when I got home and said my boobs gave it away”
Apparently, her husband Arsher also realised she was pregnant because she developed a remarkable craving for Hula Hoops.
Although she’s a television star, Roxy has also taken a rather different career path on the side because she’s a trained Yoga instructor with her own YouTube channel called YogaRox.
She hosts yoga tutorials filmed in her house and racks up thousands of views, and she’s even been joined by her fellow Emmerdale actors such as Amy Walsh and Matthew Wolfenden.
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She is particularly close to her castmate Joe-Warren Plant, who plays her on-screen son Jacob Gallagher in Emmerdale.
Roxy has worked with Joe-Warren since he was just seven years old, and she admits she has a real motherly love for the star.
During an interview in 2019 she told Lorraine Kelly: “What’s been great for me is that I’ve worked with Joe-Warren since he was seven and you cant help but feel protective of him,”
“I think thats helped me [act] the difficult scenes because the love is real.”
Roxy’s Leyla is set to marry Dr Cavanagh on Emmerdale during a heated central plot on the soap, where in Bernice Blackstock arrives in a wedding dress to try and steal Liam away.
Bernice, Liam’s former fiancé who dumped him before they got married, could ruin Leyla’s big day.
EastEnders continues tonight on ITV at 7pm.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
