Coronation Street and Grantchester actress Melissa Johns is preparing for the arrival of her first child – but insists cruel trolls won’t stop her feeling empowered by her body
Melissa Johns couldn’t be more excited to welcome her baby girl with husband Dan. The Coronation Street and Grantchester star is gearing up for the arrival of her first child – but being pregnant has changed her life in more ways than one.
The actress – who is best known to TV fans for playing Miss Scott in the ITV period drama – says being pregnant has made her feel empowered after growing up being told her body was “limited” after she was born without a right forearm or hand.
Melissa has documented her pregnancy in the way most parents do, with a gorgeous bump photoshoot. But for Melissa, these images represent more than just her own journey.
“It feels so empowering to me. I’ve grown up not seeing people with body differences in bump photoshoots and I’ve spent a lot of my life with people telling me that my body is limited,” she exclusively tells us, “Having a limb difference, people have commented on it, judged it and put their own limitations on it. There’s something about growing and carrying a baby that makes me feel limitless. Growing up feeling people were limiting me to growing a child and feeling limitless, it’s a lovely feeling.”
As a disabled woman who grew up being told finding love and having children was off the table for her and that she “just needed to love herself”, Melissa wants to flip the narrative.
“I didn’t learn to hate myself from the beginning – it’s the world we live in. It’s a really tricky one to navigate. Me hating and loathing the body I have growing up, that wasn’t a product of me and how I felt about my body,” she says.
“It was a product of how I was told I should feel about my body. Even when I was little, I was told I was special and brave – people commenting on my body now I’m pregnant hasn’t come as a shock to me.”
She adds: “I’ve grown up with it. It’s strange though when it’s not about my limb difference, it’s about my baby bump. That feels so much more universal. It shows that we are so obsessed with bodies – whether it’s good or bad. As a nation, we are obsessed with the way we look and I guess having the bump has fed into that for me. It’s really nice to have a different thing to talk about.”
Most mums are questioned and probed about how they’ll cope when their baby arrives. With her limb difference, Melissa has had to face even more of these unsolicited questions.
“Sometimes people will question, how will you manage? How will you hold the baby? How will you go for a coffee for friends and hold the baby at the same time? People do ask those questions,” she explains, “And the bottom line is, I’m trying to work that out too. People are intrigued because they don’t see it very much and that’s a shame.”
Amid all the excitement about the baby’s arrival, Melissa has been honest about her fears for both herself and her daughter.
“When my baby girl is a bit older, I’m going to be surrounded by loads of kids. Each child asks so many questions but that’s still something that even at my age that I really fear. I’ve always felt so fearful and intimidated by children asking lots of questions. Does my little girl going to think she needs to stand up for me if she hears people say about my body? Does she feel like she has to fight my corner? Is she going to be worried about telling me? Will I be worried about her hearing things from people?” she told us.
With her incredible acting ability, it won’t be long until Melissa is gracing our screens again – but what the arrival of her baby means for her acting going forward has left Melissa concerned.
“We rarely see actors working when they’re pregnant and that is a worry for an actor. We’re worried about our careers. I’ve been so anxious about how [having a baby] is going to affect my career,” she says, “That’s really scary because being a disabled actor, I had to work extra hard to prove to the industry that I can play any character, it doesn’t have to be about disability. That pressure after breaking down those barriers – what does that mean now I’m having a baby?”
As she prepares to welcome her little one, Melissa is also saying goodbye to a huge chapter of her life. The actress has starred on Grantchester for six years and has filmed her final scenes, as the ITV drama prepares to end.
“I’ve been filming for five months up to nine months, which has been lovely. The cast have been amazing – they’ve all been so wonderful, buying me little gifts for the baby,” she says.
“I joined that show six series ago. It saw me through Covid, it saw me through leaving my ex-partner after eight years, it saw me through selling my house and having to sleep on friends’ sofas and in hotels. It saw me meet Dan, get engaged to Dan and Dan and I buy our first house. It saw us get married and the final series saw us about to have our baby the week it wraps. A lot of people don’t get to live that. How lucky am I throughout all those up and downs, I had Grantchester.”
Even though the show is wrapping, it’s clear Miss Scott will be walking alongside Melissa as she welcomes her little girl with husband Dan – and whatever she decides to do next.
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