Former Coronation Street star Suranne Jones has said her stint on the ITV soap was ‘not fun’.

The actress, 46, became a household name when she joined as factory girl Karen Phillips in 2000.

She soon became Mrs McDonald, marrying Steve (Simon Gregson) just months after they got together following a bet with Janice Battersby (Vicky Entwistle) that she couldn’t make it happen.

The couple were pretty much doomed from the outset, and after staging a fake separation, Steve decided that they should part ways. However, shortly afterwards, he proposed again – but there was trouble brewing with Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford).

She’d allowed the Croppers to believe that Roy (David Neilson) had fathered her daughter Amy, but as Steve and Karen said their vows for a second time, confessed that he was actually the baby daddy.

A furious Karen grew increasingly jealous of Tracy’s involvement in her husband’s life, and after torching her new car, left Weatherfield forever on Boxing Day 2004.

Two decades on, Suranne has reflected on her time in the serial drama, describing it as a ‘different time’.

‘I was in Corrie 26 years ago, which feels like a lifetime ago!’ she said.

‘It was huge. The paps were chasing us – it was just a different time. It was not fun, not when you’re young.

‘It was around the time of people needing to look a certain way, and all of that ring of shame, that’s the era that we’re talking about.’

Continuing to Celebrity Angels, she said: ‘I was in the press a lot back then, and I had people outside my house. I was being followed.

‘I didn’t go to university, so that was my university. I won quite a lot of awards then, because people loved Karen, because she was kind of feisty, people thought I was maybe like Karen.

‘So I think the press loved the character and wanted something interesting for me.’

The actress also spoke about how the show’s popularity meant more episodes began to be produced. From January 2026, Coronation Street and sister soap Emmerdale will scale back to five episodes each.

‘When I joined, we went from three to four or four to five episodes; it was a huge shift,’ she explained.

‘So we were just in more episodes and spent more time in people’s living rooms. And like I said, Karen was really wild. So people just thought that I was.’

Despite her feelings on stardom, Suranne is still in touch with a number of her co-stars.

‘I was out partying, I was going to everything,’ she said.

‘I was enjoying myself. I was dating, I was doing all of that with my Corrie group that I still get on with now – me, Sally [Lindsay], Jenny [James], Anthony Cotton and Angela Lonsdale, there were so many of us that were just kind of thrown into it all.’