ITV deny Georgia May Foote axed for refusing Islamic storyline


Do you remember in the 70s and early 80s when the Sunday tabloids had a field day after a footballer was exposed as a love cheat or an actor left a soap?

They'd get the footballer, or actor, or whoever, into the paper, plaster their face all over the pages alongside their words, each one coming out as bitter as you'd expect, especially when it was a soap actor and they'd been sacked.

Well, it's happened again. Today. And no, it's not 1972 but this story in The Sun on Sunday makes it feel like it is.

Marc Anwar, who was sacked from Corrie as Sharif Nazir, after making racist remarks back in 2016, has turned up in a double page spread in The Sun on Sunday today. He criticises most everyone in the cast he worked with saying the following:

  • Georgia May Foote left the show after she refused to allow her character Katy Armstrong to turn to Islam.  And what does Georgia have to say to that today publicly on twitter?  Well, she says this:

The soap itself also denied the reports today , with a Coronation Street spokesperson telling Digital Spy: "Georgia never refused to do any storyline during her time in the show."

I reckon, based on ITV and Georgia's response to the story, and Marc's reason for leaving the show himself, that the rest of the story in The Sun on Sunday can be taken with a huge pinch of salt too.  But let's have a look at what he does say, because by 'eck, it's funny.

He has a pop at Sair Khan, who plays Alya Nazir and complains about the way that Muslims are depicted in the show. He complains about Antony Cotton being unfriendly.  He even says that Shelley King, who plays Yasmeen Nazir took food home from the canteen. Well, I never!

Well, it goes on, as petty and bitter as it can be. What a shame, but also, what a tabloid throwback to the days of anything goes gossip, eh?

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