I’m A Celeb's Sue Cleaver found secret sisters by chance - as sibling seen on Corrie
I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! star Sue Cleaver revealed how she found her biological family in an unexpected twist of fate.
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Sue Cleaver, 59, gave I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! viewers an insight into her family life as she told her campmates that she is adopted and knows her biological relatives. The Coronation Street actress revealed how it was a chance encounter that made her cross paths with her birth mum and her two sisters - who also work in the TV industry.
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Sue, who plays Eileen Grimshaw in the ITV soap, began: “I’m adopted. I had a lot of attachment disorders that started in my teens. Trying on personalities like coats. I wasn’t my authentic self.”
Sue went on: “It was when I was at drama school, about 23, 24, and the Royal Exchange were looking for tiny little parts to be in Oedipus, that David Threlfall was doing and there was an actor in the show called Michael N/ Harbour.
“When we walked in on the first day he turned to Dave Threlfall and went, ‘Oh my God, she’s the absolute double of my wife when I met her.’”
He then asked Sue her date of birth and enquired: “Oh, so where were you born?’"
Sue explained that after his realisation, the actor called his wife and told her: "I’ve found her."
But the coincidences did not stop there, as Sue later found out she had two sisters who worked in her industry.
Sue added: "It’s uncanny and I’ve got two half-sisters who are all in the business - Kate is huge in animation and Emma was an actress.”
She explained: "It’s lovely because my mum and my birth mother, we’ve all met, been out for dinner, we’ve all kept in touch.
“So, we’ve all had lovely relationships ever since - so it’s a nice ending. I’m very lucky."
One of Sue’s stepsisters, Kate, is one of the stars of the children’s TV show Bob the Builder and voices a number of characters in animated shows and films, according to The Sun.
Kate also starred in Casualty, Doctors, Midsomer Murders, Heartbeat and Dixon of Dock Green.
Sue’s other half-sister, Kate, has also starred in Coronation Street in two roles, with the first appearance being in July 2001 as Toyah Battersby's rape counsellor Jayne Morgan.
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Kate returned in December 2017 as a doctor at Weatherfield General during Billy Mayhew’s two separate admissions, and also in September 2020 as she treated Sam Blakeman for a sprain.
Sue previously left fans stunned as she revealed during an interview on This Morning in 2019 her close brush with death due to sepsis.
She was on the set of Coronation Street when she started to feel unwell and her co-star Melanie Hill later pointed out that her feet had gone "blue and purple".
However, being an IBS sufferer, the TV star believed she was having a bad flare up, but it was a quick-thinking phone call that had saved her life from sepsis.
Sue explained: "I went home after lunch and got into bed and tried to go to sleep. My husband [James Quinn], who also works on Corrie, was on a night shoot and tried to ring me.
"He said, 'Something's not right. I can't hear what she's saying because your teeth are chattering too much'. He came back and I was just shaking. He rang our daughter, who's a paramedic who said, 'Get her to hospital'."
At the time, Sue's temperature was 39.9 and doctors swiftly delivered the news she had sepsis.
"Immediately I was on fluids and antibiotics. There was an hour window of opportunity," she added to hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford.
I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! continues tonight on ITV at 9pm
