ITV Coronation Street star Kimberly Hart-Simpson’s unusual career away from soap and TV dating heartbreak

Two years after her exit from Coronation Street, Kimberly Hart-Simpson is roaming the cobbles as Nicky Wheatley once again.

Desperate to avoid being wrongfully thrown behind bars for the supposed murder of Lauren Bolton, Daniel Osbourne grew increasingly desperate to get answers for the teen’s disappearance, prompting him to reach out to his former flame.

Nicky, who had once worked as a sex worker, returned to Weatherfield a changed woman working in community outreach. She quickly agreed to help the teacher with her knowledge of the sex industry as wayward Lauren Bolton was known to have followed in Ryan Connor’s footsteps on O-Vidz before vanishing – but suspicions landed on Daniel regardless of Nicky’s best efforts.

But while her ITV alter ego is facing huge drama, actress Kimberly Hart-Simpson’s life away from the limelight is smooth sailing, with the soap star at the helm of her own reupholstering business. Diehard fans of the Manchester-based drama will know that the 37-year-old first appeared in Weatherfield in June 2020, as Rob Mallard’s Daniel Osbourne was struggling in the aftermath of his wife Sinead’s death.

Kimberly made her first exit just four months later, only reappearing in 2022 as her character tried to stick to the straight and narrow – but her past quickly caught up with her when a jealous Daisy Midgeley exposed her sex worker past. And while she has reprised her role in 2024, the number of episodes she’s due to appear in remains unconfirmed.

After bowing out of the soap a second time, Kimberly focused on other projects and wowed her fans on Instagram to announce she’d taken on a new career in October, 2023. The actress shared a selfie in which she can be seen holding up a key.

Proud Kimberly had written as a caption: “Today I got the keys to my new office for Hart-Work. The space is going to allow me to do so much more reupholstering and content. It’s been on the vision board so it had to happen.” The “small win”, as she’d branded the move, came years after she opened the Instagram account for her new business, “a celebrity endorsed clothing boutique” with its own spot on retailer ASOS Marketplace. In late 2021, Kimberly even celebrated the laugh of a collection with Mancunian nail studio Doll Parts.

Kimberly is active on social media, particularly on Instagram, where snaps of her off-screen routine – from glitzy events to her real-life friendships with soap legends such as Rob Mallard and Danielle Harold – are closely followed by 139k followers.

Earlier in April, 2024, Kimberly had taken to the social media platform again to unveil another big and exciting change in her life – the purchase of a new home. Sporting a casual look on an Instagram story, Kimberly happily pouted as she held up another set of keys, standing next to a staircase with a glass panel. But some other details of her life have stayed under wraps with Kimberly rarely confiding about personal matters.

While she is known for her Coronation Street role or as firefighter Davina in Hollyoaks, Kimberly has also appeared on Celebs Go Dating, where she first set eyes on Shane Finlayson. The pair embarked on a relationship in November, 2020, after meeting on the set of the Channel 4 program, and made their relationship Instagram official with a loved-up post.

But in 2021, Kimberly announced they had gone their separate ways, citing the Covid-19 restrictions and the distance separating them as the challenge that broke them.

“After 6 months of dating Shane and I have decided to part ways. We are proud of our journey and respect each other immensely. The show has been the best experience”, Kimberly had penned in a statement. “Our journey after that even better but with the distance between us, work commitments and restrictions can naturally take its toll.”

Since then, Kimberly – who identifies as pansexual, which refers to the sexual or romantic attraction to people regardless of their sex and gender – has only opened up about her matters of the heart on sporadic occasions, stating she was “single with not a sniff of a ring” during a Q&A with her Instagram followers in July, 2022.