Coronation Street fan attacked by trolls for allowing twins to play dying Oliver Battersby

August 27, 2024

CORRIE fan Lia Holmes will appear in her favourite soap next week playing a nurse caring for tragic Oliver Battersby.

And the role will be especially tough because her identical four-year-old twins Emmanuel and Jeremiah play the dying child.

Oliver will lose his battle with mitochondrial disease after his treatment is withdrawn.

Lia, 35, agreed to play the nurse who comforts Oliver as the cast are forbidden to touch the twins under strict Covid filming rules.

She also wanted to raise awareness of the genetic condition, which stops cells producing enough energy for the body to function properly.

But trolls have attacked her for letting her kids take on the role — and members of her family have asked her not to do it.

In an exclusive interview, Lia said: “It’s been tough. We have had people on social media saying they would never let their sons play a dying child.

"We had family members who said we were tempting fate.

“Corrie said they would get different actors to film it if we felt uneasy. But Jane Danson, who plays Oliver’s mum Leanne Battersby, told me Corrie will do it sympathetically. And they have.

“I spoke to The Lily Foundation too, the UK charity that Corrie worked with which is fighting mitochondrial disease, and it wanted the soap to show Oliver’s story to raise awareness about the condition. So we did it for the greater good.

“I am proud the boys did this. They raised awareness for the Lily Foundation.

“We even did a fundraiser in my home town for the charity because I now know the hell these sick kids go through. We all dressed up as Corrie characters.”

Mum Lia, from Rossendale, Lancs, and her partner Christopher Cheetham, 36, signed their boys up for the soap when they were just a few days old after her pals saw a post from a casting company on Facebook.

Lia said: “I once appeared on Take Me Out and I was on Antiques Road Trip, so my mates knew I would be interested.

“Six weeks later the boys were signed up.

“They have had great fun at Corrie over the years.

“I have had to chase them around the set and even bang my head against the wall to make them laugh in certain scenes.

“One time Jeremiah was meant to be having his temperature taken at the doctors but he kept ripping up paper on the couch and shouting ‘sausages’.”

The twins have now notched up 100 episodes.

This week seven million viewers watched heartbreaking court scenes showing Leanne and dad Steve McDonald, played by Simon Gregson, fighting the hospital’s decision to withdraw their son’s treatment.

And next week the parents decide to turn off his life support machine after hearing there is nothing they can do to save him.

Lia said: “I cried when I watched those court scenes.

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“I made sure that Emmanuel did the final scenes so it was a different twin to the ‘newborn’ one on set, who was Jeremiah.

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