Coronation Street star's health battle and unexpected job away from the soap

Daily Mirror

2 days ago

Channique Sterling-Brown, who plays lawyer Dee-Dee Bailey in Coronation Street, has opened up about her mental health battle and role away from the soap as she becomes an ambassador for charity
Laughing with locals, Channique Sterling-Brown looks completely at home as she admires the livestock and learns to shell nuts in a remote African village.
Better known as lawyer Dee-Dee Bailey in Coronation Street, she is in a remote rural community in Malawi, where more than 70% of the population live below the national poverty line, surviving on less than £1.60 a day.
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A 5,000 mile trip from her home in Manchester, she is working with the international development charity Tearfund, promoting its work to eradicate period poverty - a subject this paper is also campaigning to stamp out here in the UK through our End Period Poverty campaign.
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'I'm very grateful for my job at Coronation Street, but it's a strange thing having a platform when it's come out of nowhere. Suddenly you get a role on TV and it changes your life,' says Channique, 28.
'I'm not a perfect person, I'm just a girl from Manchester, but I think it's my responsibility to use this profile I've got through Coronation Street to help and care for others.
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'I feel grateful to be able to do that. These people might be on the other side of the world, but it's about spreading the love.'
Fans of Dee Dee, the big-hearted lawyer, who came to the cobbles in 2022 as part of the Bailey clan – the first black family on the street - may feel these words have come straight from her mouth.
Like Dee-Dee, off-screen Channique is a committed Christian and was approached by Tearfund, a Christian charity that partners with churches in 50 of the world's poorest countries, last year and invited to be an ambassador.
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She says: 'I loved the sound of a charity that was focussed on reaching people, teaching them, equipping them and empowering them. I loved the fact that it was through the church too.'
Channique, who has visited life-changing water and sanitation projects to witness Teardrop's work in eradicating period poverty, says this has long been a subject close to her heart.
'Period poverty is an international problem and there are girls right here in the UK that miss out on education because of it,' she says.
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'My church's community centre is in one of the poorest areas in Manchester. We run a foodbank and my donation is regularly menstrual hygiene products.
'Obviously people need to eat, but it's nice for women to know that these products will always be stocked on the foodbank shelves.'
During her trip, Channique meets local teenage girls to learn how the charity has helped them break down myths and taboos around menstruation and provide safe and clean toilets at school - meaning they do not have to miss out on education.
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Period poverty, which refers to the inability to afford or access menstrual products, means that 30% of young girls in Malawi stay out of school for up to a week every month during their period. But Tearfund is working to change that.
'We went to a school near Salima where they have a changing block for the adolescent girls who have their periods,' Channique says. 'It's somewhere they have access to clean water and to clean themselves, so they can then get straight back into lessons.
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'They are also learning to sew reusable sanitary pads. The boys are helping do that too and learning about periods and the menstrual cycle. I would never have expected that, because I don't even see it in the UK.'
Channique has also seen first-hand the community groups established by Tearfund, which have given villagers valuable lessons in agriculture and business.
'I met Joyce and she taught me how to shell groundnuts. I wasn't very good at it, but I did my best,' Channique smiles.
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'She also showed me her animals. The charity had taught her how to take the manure from the livestock and turn it into organic fertiliser so, whereas previously she'd been getting five bags of groundnuts, she was now getting 20. That's amazing, life-changing multiplication, just from that titbit of knowledge.'
Christianity and work done through the church are both massively important to Channique, who credits her faith with transforming her life.
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Growing up in London and then Yorkshire in a church-going family, her turning point came in 2020 when she signed up for an Alpha Course - an evangelistic Christian course - to learn more about faith.
'It changed my life and I don't say that lightly,' she says. 'It gave me a new understanding of what Christianity is. As a young adult I'd thought it meant I couldn't have any fun and that there were lots of rules. But that hasn't been the reality for me. The reality has been that it's given me so much hope and joy.
'Before this I had lots of personal struggles with mental health, in terms of anxiety and self-esteem and lots of different things, if I'm honest about it,' she says candidly. 'Finding my faith has empowered me – it's like the world is in colour now.
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'Before, when I looked at the situations in the world, I felt really hopeless and heartbroken. Now I look at the good that is out there and how many people want to make a change.'
Again, hearing Channique speak, there are echoes of her non-nonsense, yet massively compassionate Corrie character Dee-Dee, who has featured in a host of dramatic storylines, including, most recently, becoming pregnant by her abusive fiancé Joel Deering.
After first considering a termination, Dee-Dee decided to keep the baby and the plan is that she will be raised abroad by her brother James and his partner Danny. But, as Dee-Dee spends more time with her daughter, it's clear she is wondering if she has made the right decision.
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'She's having doubts,' Channique says. 'She is becoming attached to the baby. It's such a complicated situation – there's a constant battle between head and heart. Logically she thinks it's best that James takes Leyla, but that's not the reality of what she feels, so we'll definitely see the repercussions of that for her.'
The actress, who works as a Sunday School teacher at her local church, adds: 'It wasn't my plan to be on television. I would have been just as happy treading the boards and I always say that the timing of me getting Coronation Street was really special. It was after Covid, I'd really found my faith and I was a bit older and a bit wiser and that's equipped me with better priorities.'
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Starting a family is not at the top of that priority list at the moment for single Channique, despite loving her storylines with the baby who plays Laila.
She laughs: 'Working with animals and children isn't as bad as people say! I love the baby; she's so cute and chilled out. I was actually quite annoyed at first. Because Dee-Dee didn't want to bond with her, it meant everyone on set was holding her except me! I was like 'why are Alan Halsall (Tyrone Dobbs) and Mike Le Vell (Kevin Webster) holding the baby and I'm not?'
Having just bought her first house in Manchester, which she shares with her best friend, Channique would like to settle down and be a mum one day.
'I'm still young so it's not on the cards at the minute, however I would definitely love that in my future,' she enthuses. 'But I'm really blessed. I've got lots of amazing nieces and nephews, so I'm not short for cuddles.'