Former Coronation Street star Wendi Peters has shared her joy at finding love again following the breakdown of her marriage.
The actress, who is best known for her role as Cilla Battersby-Brown on the ITV soap, split from husband Kenny Linden in 2023 after 30 years of marriage.
Wendi is now in a relationship with carpet showroom boss Gareth Wale, after meeting 14 months ago when her friends persuaded her to sign up to a dating app.
The 56-year-old star opened up about her new romance in an interview with The Sun, admitting she loves how having nothing in common career-wise gives them ‘so much more scope for conversation’.
She said: ‘We’d been chatting online for a while when he asked what I did. I said, “Oh, well I’m an actress.”
‘He said, “Oh, what kind? Amateur, theatre, TV?” I said I was in Coronation Street. Then there was a gap of about an hour before he emailed me back. Obviously, he’d been Googling!
‘He said, “You’re a star. What are you doing talking to a carpet showroom fitter from Leicester?”’
Wendi said they have been ‘really happy ever since’ and admitted that moving together is ‘certainly something we might consider’.
‘I was married a long time, and I mean, never say never to doing it again. At the moment, though, I just don’t really see the need,’ she said.
‘We spend as much time as we can with each other and we’ll just see where it goes but I’m very happy.’
Wendi and Gareth went public with their new relationship back in May, as she shared a loved-up snap on Instagram
It was first reported she’d split from husband Kenny in April 2023.
Wendi played the role of Cilla in Coronation Street between 2003 and 2007, before returning for a six-week stint in 2014.
More recently, she swapped Weatherfield for Letherbridge when she joined the cast of now-defunct BBC daytime soap Doctors.
