Coronation Street actress Lucy Fallon has said her father cannot bear to watch her current child grooming storyline.
Lucy plays 16-year-old Bethany Platt who is dating a much older man, Nathan Curtis, and is being groomed and sexually exploited by him, which will lead to him pimping her out to his friends.
The actress told The Daily Mirror: “My mum watches it but I don’t think my dad can watch it at the moment.
“And my boyfriend doesn’t watch because he finds it too uncomfortable.
“I find it uncomfortable to watch because it’s me in it.”
Lucy said of her character in the ITV soap: “She does end up sleeping with (Nathan’s friend) and it upset me because she’s saying no and ‘I’m not that kind of girl’ and he just lays her on the bed.
“I had to cry and it was like, ‘Oh this is horrible’.
“I could really put myself in that mindset, I think you kind of have to, otherwise you’re not doing it properly.”
She said of dealing with the storyline: “It’s horrific, I don’t think there’s any way you can get out of it, but I have quite a long drive home, so I zone out and listen to my music and by the time I get home I feel normal again.”
Lucy, 21, said that the plot had made her think about how to tackle online grooming.
She said: “If I have a child, boy or girl, it’s changed the way I feel about them being on social media from such a young age. I don’t think it should be allowed.
“I think there should be an age limit, I think 16.”
