Coronation Street’s Sue Cleaver feels ‘physically sick’ over AI scam as ITV soap issues warning

Coronation Street’s Sue Cleaver has admitted she feels ‘physically sick’ after being targeted in fake AI weight loss scam videos.

The actress, 60, has played Eileen Grimshaw on the cobbles since 2000 and is a familiar face to TV watchers across the nation. Sue has dropped three stone in the past few years and she has spoken openly about her weight loss journey on Loose Women, where she sits on the panel.

However, scammers have been trying to hijack Sue’s weight loss for their own financial gain by falsely claiming that she has used their products to shift the pounds. In a horrifying twist, some scammers have even been using AI to impersonate Sue in fake videos.

It comes as ITV bosses of Coronation Street and Emmerdale have been forced to issue fans with a warning against a new social media scam. Fans are led to believe accounts on social media including Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are of the soap stars themselves. But in fact, the accounts are fake.

Talking about the ITV soap’s warning to fans on Friday’s Loose Women, Sue opened up about being targeted by fake AI weight loss scam videos and the impact it is having on her. Sue said: “It’s mortifying, the amount of messages I have had on Instagram, saying: ‘I’ve spent over £100 on these items based on that [the scam videos].’

“All I can do is apologise, I have put things out on social media, as me, saying: ‘It’s not me, if it’s not off my official site with a tick, I guarantee it’s not going to be me.’ At the moment, there is nothing to protect any of us. We’re at the very beginning of AI… and it terrifies me.”

After watching one of the scam videos in question, which saw a fake AI version of ‘Sue’ say: “You can drop two stone in like, what, three weeks?”, the actress was left shaken over the clip. Sue said over the fake video: “You know, it actually makes me feel physically sick when I see it and my heart sinks when I get a message through saying: ‘Oh, just so you know, this is on Facebook, is this you?’ and I think: ‘Oh, not again! Not again’ because all they do is close it down and open up another one.”

It comes as Emmerdale and Coronation Street’s joint statement on Thursday read: “Please be mindful that the Coronation Street and Emmerdale actors are often impersonated on social media by scammers who set up fake accounts on platforms such as Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok and Telegram.”

It added: “As producers of both programmes, we feel we should warn viewers that this is happening, and noticeably more frequently of late. Please take great care when conversing on social media and be vigilant about these fake accounts by reporting them to the appropriate platform.”