Samia Longchambon has opened up about the heartbreak of losing her dad to cancer in 2009 - and the touching connection he shares with her husband Sylvain.

The Coronation Street, 42, who has played Maria on the show since 2000, spoke to Prima Magazine for their July issue. 

Samia has been open about how losing her father devastated her, and she has now shared that she believes he 'sent' her Dancing On Ice star husband Sylvain to her.

She said: 'It wasn’t love at first skate for me and Sylvain [they met in 2012 on Dancing On Ice]. I was too busy learning to move around on the ice to be thinking about anything like that! Things between us didn’t start until months after we first met. 

'I think my dad sent Sylvain to me. My dad died in 2009 and French was his second language. He loved France, and his sister Samia, who I’m named after, lives about an hour away from where Sylvain grew up in Lyon. 

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'Once we got to know each other, I was like, "Oh, this is weird". There were so many common threads with him that I was like, "I feel like my dad just sent you".'

Elsewhere in the interview, Samia opened up about how she deals with online trolling as someone in the limelight.

She said: 'I've had to deal with loads of trolling over the years. It's usually when Maria's caught up in something that’s not great and people forget that I’m not this character! It's not nice – this industry can be hard if you're not thick-skinned, and I'm not. 

'So I have to discipline myself with social media – reading mean comments can feel like picking a scab; you don’t want to read it, but then you do end up reading it, and it ruins your day. 

'Historically, there’s been a couple of times I have responded to trolls. Weirdly, though, I find that most people back down and apologise when you call them out. "Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that," they might say. 

'And I'll think, "Well, I'm a human with feelings, and it hurts – but it's fine, let's move on".' 

Samia and Sylvain exchanged vows in a fairytale wedding in August 2016 in front of 500 close family and friends at a sprawling country manor, with Samia's daughter Freya as a bridesmaid and their son Yves as a groomsman - three years after their first meeting on the set of now-defunct Dancing On Ice. 

But the first months of their romance were overshadowed by Sylvain's acrimonious split with Hollyoaks star Jennifer Metcalfe, who he also met on the ITV show.

The Frenchman controversially ended their two-year relationship during a tense phone conversation on Christmas Day 2012 after admitting he'd fallen for Samia, leaving the actress devastated.

Samia previously dated co-star Will Thorp - but ended their two-year relationship in December 2012, shortly after signing up for the show.

The pair started dating in January 2011 - just a few weeks after Samia left her husband Matthew after six years of marriage and one month after Will - who played builder Chris Gray in the soap - left his wife Samantha, the mother of his two children.

However, both Samia and Will insisted they didn't start dating until their marriages were over.

Three years after the inauspicious start, Samia said of the wedding: 'I was so happy I had to stop myself from running down the aisle!'

The pair added one more addition to the family in 2020 with pup Ralf - who Samia subs her 'third child'.

And admitting the whole family fell in love with Ralf, she has previously explained that her husband 'wouldn't do without him', adding 'he's soft as anything with Ralf'.

Before their marriage, Samia was wed to property developer Matt Smith from 2005 to 2011.

The July 2025 issue of Prima is now on sale.