Corrie Gail Platt star’s life off screen – huge net worth to devastating affair

Veteran actress Helen Worth is set to make a special Coronation Street return, exactly a year after leaving the show behind following 50 years on the ITV soap

21:00, 25 Dec 2025Updated 21:02, 25 Dec 2025

As the unlucky-in-love mother of three, Gail evolved into one of the show’s most treasured and enduring characters

It’s been almost a year since Coronation Street icon Gail Platt said farewell to Weatherfield after 50 years on the cobbles as she packed her bags for France.

Following her departure last Christmas, we are set to see Helen Worth back on our screens over the festive period as the long-suffering mum makes a surprise Corrie return – although bosses are keeping her involvement in the episode a strict secret.

Fans of the ITV show were left stunned by her exit after a long-running stint on the soap, spanning back to 1974. She is set for a one-off appearance, which is sure to delight the show’s avid viewers when he see the long-server return with more problems ahead in the Platt household.

Corrie icon Gail Platt was last seen in Weatherfield last year before she left with new husband Jesse

Helen loved playing Gail, a character who has had her fair share of drama over the years from multiple marriages, her daughter Sarah’s teenage pregnancy, bitter feuds, and falling for a serial killer. Since she left, the 74-year-old star has been linked with a number of big parts.

Here, we take a look at her off-screen life and what could be next for the star as she prepares to take a step back onto the street a year after he departure.

Strictly linksCould we see her on Strictly Come Dancing? (Image: Guy Levy/BBC/PA)

Could 2026 finally be the year we see the star take to the Strictly dancefloor?

Helen – understood to be a big fan of the BBC show – has been linked since 2024, the year she announced she would be leaving Coronation Street. Fans are hopeful we will still see the star don the sequins when the next line-up is announced.

She would join a long list of former Corrie stars who’ve competed on Strictly, including Tina O’Brien, Catherine Tyldesley, Georgia May Foote, and of course the 2023 winner Ellie Leach.

Secret life in LondonShe lives in London but made sure she was back north for on-screen son Jack P Shepherd’s wedding in the summer(Image: MCPIX)

Having been in Corrie for so long and appearing in over 3,000 episodes, Helen was one of the soap’s highest paid stars. She reportedly took home a £250,000-a-year salary.

But instead of living in Manchester, where Coronation Street is filmed, she actually lives in London where she owns a house.

Despite being a northern girl at heart, having grown up in Morecambe, Lancashire, Helen enjoys a glitzy life in the capital and made the lengthy commute to the set to film her scenes, making the most of some fine hotels and often staying in the city.

Husband heartbreaking affairHelen with first husband Michael Angelis, who cheated on her twice(Image: PA)

Helen tends to keep her personal life away from the limelight but was faced with a very public situation back in 1995 when her first husband Michael’s affair was leaked.

Speaking about his infidelity back in 2001, she told The Mirror: “Nothing can ever prepare you for the day your husband sits you down and tells you he is having an affair.

“My marriage was everything to me. It was the foundation on which everything else was built. I had been with Michael for nearly half of my life. I never imagined that we wouldn’t grow old together. When he told me, everything just went black.

“Things started to make sense. Maybe I realised right away that something like that had been bound to happen. Things hadn’t been right for some time, but – naively maybe – I didn’t think it was serious.”

Family tragedyHelen’s tragic mum never got to see her acting career blossom (Image: Granada Television)

Helen’s glittering soap career took off three years after she tragically lost her mother in a hit-and-run accident when the actress was 20 years old. Previously opening up to the Daily Star about her heartache, she shared: “The one person I really wanted to tell when I got the part of Gail was my mother.

“She would have been so thrilled. More excited than me. She’d been there all the way – at the dance classes, holding my hand before the competitions, putting on her best suit to take me to London for auditions. But when I finally made it, she wasn’t there to share it with me. I’d never missed her more.”