Shelley King says Ian Bartholomew feels like her "family" now – but the co-stars also clash.
The ‘Coronation Street’ pair are currently playing out a hard-hitting storyline which has seen Ian’s character Geoff Metcalfe subject his wife Yasmeen to months of psychological abuse, and while the two stars are close off-screen, Shelley admits they can sometimes have real-life rows.
She said: "We’re a family now, Barty and me.
"We can have a row without never speaking again, and then minutes after he’ll phone me and say, ‘I’m really sorry, Shell.’
"And I’ll say, ‘I was a real dork-brain, Barts.’ And he’ll say, ‘Yes, you were.’
"As Geoff and Yasmeen’s relationship progressed we knew that something was going to happen, but we didn’t know quite what.
"I’m so grateful to have him by my side."
Ian has stayed with Shelley on numerous occasions at her flat, and she believes spending time with each other away from the cameras helped them to play out the difficult emotions in some of their scenes.
Speaking to Inside Soap magazine, she added: "Barty used to stay at my flat if we ever had a long day at work – as he lives further away from set – and we’d have a chat about it all.
"The scenes got tough, so I think we needed to spend more time with each other.
"We were exploring emotions that were quite difficult, so it drew us even closer."
Shelley previously revealed Ian wouldn’t go out in Manchester’s MediaCity without her, for fear of a fan backlash over his ‘Corrie’ character.
She said: "He told me he was the most hated man in the entire country!
"Sometimes he stays with me and [wife] Trilby [James] as he lives away and he said he wouldn’t go out in MediaCity in Manchester unless I was with him.
"When we’re walking, people wind down their car window and shout, ‘Leave him!’ "