Hollyoaks star Rishi Nair has enjoyed a reunion with his former soap co-stars,
as he hosted a party to celebrate his engagement to his girlfriend.
The actor played lawyer Sami Maalik in Hollyoaks from 2017 to 2021
when Sami decided to take a new job in London,
with several more of the Maalik family having also departed the village since.
But the stars who have played the family have shown that they’re just
as close as ever behind the scenes, as they gathered to celebrate Grantchester star Nair’s engagement news.
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Haiesha Mistry, who played Yazz in the soap, shared a pair of photos from the party on Instagram, writing: “And just like that the Maaliks are back together! Such a heartwarming night celebrating love.”
Alongside a snap of Nair, Mistry, Harvey Virdi (who plays Misbah) and Ijaz Rana (who played Imran) smiling together was another of the group striking fun poses, as Virdi checked her phone in the background.
Mistry also shared several photos to her Instagram Stories feed, including one of herself with Rana in which she called him “my bro” and said: “I’ll forever be your hypeman”.
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Her other updates featured a shot of an impressive engagement cake, which she captioned with the words “a weekend celebrating love”. Rana also shared a picture of the on-screen family together captioned “Gang” with a blue heart emoji.
Nair also shared more snaps on his own Stories, including a video of himself and his new fiancée kissing and a photo of the whole party together.
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Sami arrived in Hollyoaks village in 2017 to take up a job at James Nightingale’s law firm – but he’d actually arrived to take revenge on James, after finding evidence he’d framed Sami’s late father for a crime.
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He was also a key part of the soap’s far-right radicalisation storyline when the Maalik family were repeatedly targeted with racist abuse.
During Sami’s time in the village, he dated Ellie Nightingale, Sinead Shelby, Liberty Savage and Verity Hutchinson, while he also became embroiled in a feud with Shaq Qureshi over Verity.
Before leaving the village, Sami threatened Shaq’s biological father Ali Shahzad, after he discovered that Ali had raped Shaq’s mother Misbah. Sami then decided to leave for a fresh start.
After leaving Hollyoaks in late 2021, Nair has gone on to appear in the likes of Whitstable Pearl, Netflix’s Treason and horror-comedy Count Abdulla. He recently made his debut in Grantchester as the village’s new vicar Alphy Kotteram.
Hollyoaks streams first online via Channel 4 each weekday at 7.30pm. Episodes then air on E4 the following day, before getting their YouTube premiere a week after that.
Selected omnibus episodes are available via Prime Video.
