CORONATION Street star Lucy Fallon has bravely admitted that leaving the soap was "possibly the worst decision ever made".
Lucy, 27, played Bethany Platt in Corrie for five years before dramatically quitting the cobbles in January 2020.
But in a new podcast, the actress has spoken about how she very quickly regretted her life choice.
Lucy's decision to leave Coronation Street coincided with the coronavirus pandemic - and full lockdown.
Speaking on , she said: "I left in January 2020, which was potentially the worst possible decision I could have ever made.
"We went into the full lockdown in the March.
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"I feel like in a way it did me some favours, in that I could get away from that character and not have the pressure that I needed to be doing something, because nobody was doing anything.
"The worst question you can get asked when you aren't working is, 'What are you doing now? What are you doing next? What TV show are you going to be on now?', as if it just works like that.
"So even though lockdown was horrendous, I sort of enjoyed that time just not having to worry about the fact that people weren't going to ask me that question.
"But again, it killed me because I was on a high when I left Corrie and then lockdown sort of fizzled that out."
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Lucy went on to admit that things took a turn for the worst when the UK began to slowly open up again.
The star said she struggled to find work due to there being so many out of work actors and actresses and less TV and stage shows being produced.
"When things started back up again, I struggled to find my place in the auditions," Lucy continued.
"My agent at the time then struggled to find where she'd fit me and everything started to fall apart a little bit, in terms of work and acting.
"I'll be honest, I have struggled. It's been hard and I think the main reason is because we were in a global pandemic."
She added: "The long-lasting effects of the pandemic is that there's such a backlog of actors and actresses trying to get work.
"There's people who left college in 2019 or 2020 and are trying to get work. I feel like there's also not much being made either.
"I feel like auditions were few and far between anyway.
"I've been lucky in the sense I have worked - I have done stuff.
"But leaving something like Corrie, you have people who think, 'Oh she's left and she thinks she's going to go on to do unreal things and she's not worked'."
In February this year, Lucy gave birth to her first child.
Together with her footballer boyfriend Ryan Ledson, the couple welcomed a son called Sonny Jude.
As a result, Lucy has no regrets about taking a step back from the spotlight and focussing on "life".
Lucy concluded: "For me, I'm really glad I made that decision [to leave Corrie] because the course of my life after that changed a lot.
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"I've got a baby! I went through a lot of life changes.
"I think if I hadn't left Corrie I could have been stuck in situations I definitely didn't want to be in. I've had a baby and am a lot happier and peaceful in my life. I've done life things."