I’m Ken’s new love interest, but I’ve battled with my body for years, says Helen Lederer
SHE once took ‘naughty’ slimming pills to keep her weight off – but Helen Lederer thinks she has finally learned to accept her body as it is.
The veteran comedian and actress, who joins Coronation Street as Ken Barlow’s latest love interest next one week, says: “It’s crazy what I would put up with just to lose some weight.
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“But you just have to forget about it and move on.”
Helen, 69, who rose to fame as a comic in the early 1980s and later starred in the TV sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, admits that if, as an emerging actress, she had been given trendy slimming tricks Wegovy or Ozempic, she would have jumped at the chance to try them out. to take.
“The shots sound like a dream come true,” she says of the diabetes medication that has helped celebrities like Sharon Osbourne and Oprah Winfrey lose weight.
‘If only they had had that when I was young…’ . .
I haven’t had the figure of a model, or the type of attractive actress, so I’ve experimented with dieting all my life, limiting myself to 400 calories a day.
“And if skinny shots help people be healthy, then that’s great.
“Plus, it’s prescribed by professionals, unlike the naughty diet pills I used.”
Weight loss medications are big now newsMorgan Stanley Research expects the market for obesity drugs to rise to £60 billion by 2030.
And Helen can understand the call well.
She says, “In life you always think, ‘Oh, if only I had perfect legs.’ . . ‘You always just want the perfect body, so it makes sense why these have become popular.
“I haven’t had the figure of a model, or the type of attractive actress, so all my life I’ve experimented with dieting, including limiting myself to 400 calories a day.”
The mother-of-one, who grew up in Eltham, south-east London, added: “I was no stranger to trying anything when I needed to lose weight, it didn’t matter how I did it.
“I managed to get slim, but then I got tired of it, so I gained weight.
“It had a lot of ups and downs.
“If I had gotten the skinny shot when I was younger, who knows? Maybe it would have helped me.
“It’s great that it works for people and it’s amazing how far science has come.”
Helen, who will appear in Corrie next Wednesday and catches the eye of Ken Barlow on a stag night, says she loved starring opposite William Roache, 91, the Street’s longest serving actor.
‘It’s a burden to be different’
“Bill was such a charming, lovely man,” says Helen, who admits she “dropped everything” when she was offered the role.
But while Helen may feel better about herself these days, she has struggled with her body image for decades.
At 6ft 4in, she has yo-yoed from a size 10 to a size 16 throughout her career and admits she starved herself to stay thin.
“I’ve been in different phases of my body my whole life,” she says.
“For years I had phases where I had to switch on and off diet pills.
‘When they worked I thought they were great, but it wouldn’t take long for your heart to start racing.
“I remember there was a comedy series I was in Scotland and I don’t think I ever ate anything while I was taking it – I just drank a lot of wine.
“Now I look back and think, ‘How?’ But then people just did this and got on with it.
“It really was like living the Ab Fab life: ‘I’m the muggins that really do it’.”
Helen started her career as a stand-up comedian at London’s Comedy Store, and quickly became one of the country’s most popular TV personalities, working with acts such as French & Saunders, Rik Mayall and Harry Enfield.
I didn’t look particularly conventional and it’s a bit difficult to be different
But it wasn’t easy being a young woman in the male-dominated comedy world and Helen remembers how she had to develop a thick skin.
“It used to be that a funny woman who didn’t look normal or average was someone to avoid,” says Helen, who releases her memoir Not That I’m Bitter on April 11.
She adds: “I didn’t have the look of it, so I don’t think I was necessarily that accepted through any group because I didn’t fit into any category.
“I didn’t look particularly conventional and it’s a bit difficult to be different.
“But I guess as you get older you just have to come to terms with it.
“If I can make people laugh, I just have to try where I can.”
Devastated by insecurities about her body, Helen says she would cover up in clothes that distracted from her physique.
“I would dress functionally and not wear clothes where someone could see my bosom, or mine, you know what,” says Helen, who has a daughter named Hannah, 33, with her first husband Roger Alton, a former newspaper editor . married 1989-1991.
She says, “You don’t want people to watch it, especially if you’re trying to be funny.
“People can’t help but make comments.”
‘I was that big person… who was funny’
Despite setbacks in her career, Helen is happily married GP Chris Browne has persevered for 25 years since 1999, landing a semi-regular role at ratings giant Ab Fab as idiot magazine contributor Catriona.
“I always wanted to work in comedy and I must have been so determined that no one would stop me from doing that,” she says.
“I’m not saying it all went smoothly.
“It’s a competitive world and society was different then.
“I was the big person in the class who was funny, so I played on that, which I thought worked.
“I didn’t wear glamorous clothes and I never tried to. I understood that look was not for me.
“I wore pants instead of skirts and made sure I had things that covered my crotch.”
One thing Helen has always resisted is the urge to have cosmetic surgery.
“If people want to make adjustments, that’s fine, but personally it’s not for me,” says the star, who also appeared in the series Celebrity Big Brother in 2017.
‘I don’t agree with some people’s choices about what they do with their faces, but that’s to each their own, right?
“I stay away from judgment. It’s not up to me to do that.
“People who have had all this dental work done now look more uniform.
“We used to be a rough old mix – we were probably quite ugly.
‘It sounds terrible, just like in the war, but that’s because we didn’t have the opportunity to change ourselves. We just kept going.
“But I think all those things, like cosmetic surgery, are great – if they work.
“On the other hand, for me there are areas that I have left untouched – probably too untouched.
“I don’t know if I should try it, maybe?
“I think that might become something else to worry about.”
After four decades in showbiz, the actress, who also starred on TV in medical soap Doctors and drama series Midsomer Murders, shows no signs of slowing down.
She says: “I’m still going to continue wherever life takes me.
“I like to have a party and I certainly won’t stop that.
“My motto in life now is just keep going, and maybe gain more self-confidence.”
Helen works with the liqueur Warnincks Original Advocaat
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