Actor Will Mellor has recalled the moment a furious soap fan slapped him across the face, apparently unable to separate him from the character he played on television.
The 50-year-old opened up about the encounter on the Lewis Nicholls Show podcast, explaining it happened while he was walking to the pub to meet friends. Mellor had appeared in Brookside for just four episodes in 1992, playing Paul Howard, a character whose actions left a lasting impression on some viewers.
Paul got Leanne Powell, played by Vickie Gates, pregnant before abandoning her, leaving her to have an abortion. The storyline clearly angered some viewers, but one fan took her reaction much further than most.
The slap and the rant
Mellor said he was walking through a cut-through from his estate towards the pub when he spotted an older woman coming towards him. He thought nothing of it until she suddenly slapped him across the face.
'I went, “What are you doing?”' Mellor recalled. The woman then launched into a furious rant about what his character had done, saying: 'You left that girl pregnant, you’ve left her, you’re a disgrace to your family, you should be ashamed of yourself.'
Mellor was stunned, particularly because the woman seemed to genuinely believe he was responsible for what happened to Leanne. 'I went, “It’s not real you f*****g idiot”, I was fuming,' he said. The slap was hard enough to leave his ear ringing.
When he reached the pub, his friends immediately noticed something was wrong. 'I got to the pub and they went, “What’s happened to you?” and I go, “This woman’s just hit me.”'
A lesson in soap fame
The incident was a memorable introduction to the downside of soap fame for Mellor, who said it made him realise how seriously some viewers take what they see on screen. 'People believe it,' he explained. 'That was my first realisation that people believe what they watch on television; they believe these characters.'
The experience did not put Mellor off acting. Three years after his Brookside appearance, he joined Hollyoaks as James 'Jambo' Bolton, playing the character for 85 episodes before appearing in shows including Casualty and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.
He returned to soaps in 2021, joining Coronation Street as villain Harvey Gaskell, a role in 53 episodes. Away from soaps, he played real-life former subpostmaster Lee Castleton in ITV's 2024 drama Mr Bates vs. The Post Office, which dramatised the Post Office scandal.
The Brookside incident remains a bizarre example of how convincing soap actors can be. For one angry viewer, the line between character and actor had disappeared completely.
