Spellbound
Inside Emmerdale star Samantha Giles’ off-screen life – from practising witchcraft to saving battered schoolboy
ACTRESS Samantha Giles brings real-life experience to her current storyline.
Emmerdale actress Samantha Giles originally joined the soap in 1998, and her most recent storyline has her pulling on her own experiences.
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Bernice Blackstock, played by Samantha, has managed to wind up caught in-between Kat Tate and Will Taylor as she lusts after the village bad boy.
Will and Bernice have agreed that they will stay away from each other, but will the truth come to light as their steaming storyline unfolds?
Being a staple of the Yorkshire farm for many years, the actress turned 50 earlier this year and has had an illustrious career.
Playing Bernice Blackstock since the mid-nineties, her storylines have seen her come and go, with her most recently returning to the soap this year after leaving her ex Liam Cavanagh at the altar in late 2019.
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From her comedy moments to her failed romantic relationships fans love Bernice.
Samantha's personal life is just as colourful as the situations her on-screen counterpart gets into.
Romance
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Identifying as a white witch, Samantha has addressed how she and other white witches use magic and the supernatural for the greater good.
Even to the point where the actress once cast a love spell while on set which led to her securing herself a husband, Sean Pritchard, a production Manager.
Samantha performed a ritual where she wrote down the personality traits she was seeking in her ideal man and used candles and crystals to complete the spell.
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Appearing on Lorraine's ITV show, Samantha said: "I've always been a Wiccan, a white witch, so I cast a love spell before I met Sean to meet the right person."
She continued: "I use candles and crystals in the magic I do. I wrote down exactly what I was after. Then I met Sean and he was exactly what I had written. It's as if he appeared by magic!"
Combining her Wiccan ways with her creative skills, Samantha wrote a book titled Rosemary and the Witches of Pendle Hill last year.
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In a true soap opera storyline, fellow Emmerdale actress Claire King has claimed Samantha once had an affair with her then-husband Peter Amory, with the couple separating in 2004.
The plot didn't end there as Samantha's first husband, Nick Moore, had allegedly written to Claire to inform her of their relationship.
The actor insisted that Samantha "wasn't anything to do with".
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In 2017 Claire was a guest on Loose Women discussing the alleged affair and described the letter she received.
"She wanted that second chance, and I've been in that situation with my marriage. And I gave my husband Pete a second chance," she said.
"Two strikes you're out. People remain within a relationship that really they shouldn't sometimes and they could have got out. I think you have to move on and get on with your life.
"I found out about it through a letter from the girl's husband and my agent rang me saying 'There are bits and pieces in the paper'. It wasn't anything to do with her."
Claire has said Samantha later apologised for her part in the alleged relationship.
The actress who plays Kim Tate said: "I met Sam at a funeral of a close friend of ours, and she said 'Look I'm really sorry'. After all these years it's water under the bridge.
"But we are friends."
Drama on her doorstep
Very sad that at the beginning of I am outside my front mopping up blood and feeding chocolate to a young man who’d been punched by lads from his school. Luckily he had some good friends helping him.
— Samantha Giles (@sammeegiles)
In May this year the star took to social media to say she found an injured schoolboy outside her house. And no, it wasn't a TV storyline.
She tweeted: "Very sad that at the beginning of #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek I am outside my front mopping up blood and feeding chocolate to a young man who’d been punched by lads from his school."
"Luckily he had some good friends helping him."
Her TV career
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Before joining Emmerdale as a fan favourite, Samantha had a short stint on another primetime soap - Coronation Street
From 1994 for one year, Samantha walked the streets of Weatherfield as Kirsty.
In her gap from Emmerdale, she has appeared as nurse Sally Boothe in Where the Heart Is, where she formed a friendship with her Emmerdale co-star Lesley Dunlop on set.
Talking to the Daily Post in the past, she said: "I've been renting a flat up in Holmfirth near where Lesley lives, so we'll meet and have a drink after we've finished filming."
Samantha joined Channel 4's Hollyoaks with two soaps under her belt from 2008 until 2012 as Valerie Holden.
She replaced actress Jacqueline Leonard in the role and appeared in the drama-filled show for 35 episodes.
Off-set
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She is now living in Liverpool with her husband Sean and two daughters, Olivia and Eve, and their cat Bob, often a fixture on her social media.
Commuting from Liverpool to Leeds, Samantha returned to work just six weeks after giving birth to her second child.
She told the Mirror: "I came back to work when my younger daughter Olivia was six weeks old, and I'd leave her with a chaperone while I filmed scenes. It was really tough – physically exhausting.
"I'd have to get up at 4.30am to be on set on time, and I'd wash and feed Olivia here before going into make-up."
ITV bosses had wanted Bernice to return to the show even earlier but the actress stood her ground.
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She added: "The producers asked me to come back when I was pregnant and I said, 'I can't come back for at least six weeks as I'm having a Caesarean and I won't be able to drive.'
"They took that literally, and wrote me back in for six weeks after the birth!"
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