Coronation Street star Sue Cleaver has opened up getting pregnant by an older man when she was 17-years-old.

Sue, who plays Eileen Grimshaw, is returning to the cobbles after a summer stint on the West End and she spoke to The Mirror about her traumatising earlier years.

She said her insecurities began as a teenager when she found herself being exploited by older boyfriends. The actress lost her virginity to an older boy, at 16 she eloped with a sailor and lived in a bedsit and at 17 she found herself pregnant after falling for a 35 year old man.

Sue appeared on I’m A Celebrity back in 2022 (Image: ITV)

The iconic actress said: “I looked for love and validation and acceptance in all the wrong places and my first sexual encounters were with somebody who was four or five years older than me.

“Nowadays that would just be unthinkable, but it wasn’t at the time. It was no-one’s fault and my parents, who were fantastic, only ever tried to do their best for me, but like a lot of teenagers I was lost. Nowadays there is awareness around mental health, but when I was that age, we had no concept of it and when I look back, I was very unhappy. I’d never want to re-live that time again.”

At 60, Sue is a stalwart of Coronation Street, having been on the show for 25 years, and is also a regular face on Loose Women.

But she is now sharing her story for the first time ahead of the release of her raw and emotional new memoir, A Work in Progress.

“There were boyfriends, one-night stands. I convinced myself that ‘Oh, if I do this, they will love me’. I was always searching for a way to belong,” she said. “It was tragic really and it breaks my heart to think about it now. There’s so much shame wrapped up in my teenage years. I was just searching and searching for someone to make me feel okay. Because I didn’t know how to be okay myself. So, I became really promiscuous.”

Sue plays straight-talkign Eileen on Corrie (Image: ITV)

Sue’s life took a turn for the worse during her school years, making poor decisions such as hitchhiking and walking home alone at night. By 15, she was in a relationship but soon left her boyfriend for his older brother, a Navy sailor.

At 16, she dropped out of school without any qualifications and moved to Plymouth to live with him in a bedsit.

Feeling isolated and bored, Sue eventually returned to Manchester to live with her parents. However, after mingling with an older crowd at a local wine bar, she found herself pregnant at 17 by a man twice her age.

“Again, that was somebody who was way older than me and took advantage,” Sue recalls. “Now it’s appalling to think of myself at that young age in that situation with men who should know better.”

Realising she wasn’t ready for motherhood, Sue decided to have an abortion, keeping her ordeal a secret from everyone. She shares: “I was in absolute turmoil. I eventually told my Mum I said: ‘This has happened, I’m going to the hospital on this date, can I have a lift and can we not tell Dad’. I don’t think we ever spoke about it again, but that was my choice. I don’t think we knew how to. My dad never knew. I look back and think I was so resilient. I just got on and I dealt with stuff.”

At 17, Sue jetted off to Canada to become a nanny before coming back to the UK to attend drama school. That’s where she tumbled into romance with her first serious boyfriend.

“He was a really lovely guy but he was a grown-up and although I was 23, emotionally I was still a kid,” reveals Sue. “There were lots of problems and I think most of them stemmed from the fact that he was established, with a career and business and what did I bring to the table financially? Absolutely jack s**t. It made me vow, even at that young age, that I would never, ever allow myself not to earn my own money.”

Her new book is called A Work in Progress (Image: DAILY MIRROR)

Fast forward nine years, Sue said ‘I do’ to actor James Quinn, and their son Elliott, now 28, came along. Sue’s star soared on TV with parts in hits like Dinnerladies and Band of Gold, and then she bagged the role of Corries gutsy cab operator Eileen Grimshaw in 2000she’s been a fan fave ever since.

After her first marriage fizzled out, Sue found love again and currently resides in Manchester with her lighting technician hubby Brian Owen. By bravely opening up about her past, she thinks it might make her realise just how tough she is.

With her upcoming book, she also aims to inspire other women to recognise their worth and kiss goodbye to self-doubt.

“When I look back at my teenage self, I just want to give her a big hug,” she muses. “But it was all part of my journey to becoming who I am now. My God, I learnt resilience and independence. I don’t have all the answers. I am a work in progress. I’m human and humans are naturally messy and will over-think things, but I hope my book will help any woman who is at the stage of their life where they feel invisible and powerless. We’re all doing the best we can, muddling our way through and I just want every woman to see for themselves how much they have to offer.”