Coronation Street’s Jude Riordan has reassured fans who began to fear he was leaving the soap.
Youngster Jude has played the role of Sam Blakeman in the soap since 2020. He was introduced when Natasha Blakeman (Rachel Leskovac) returned to Weatherfield.
Natasha was a former love interest of Nick Tilsley’s (Ben Price), which meant he couldn’t help wonder if Sam was his son when he first laid eyes on him. Nick eventually learnt that he is Sam’s dad, but didn’t for once think that he’d end up as the young lad’s only biological parent.
Sam’s mum was killed by Harvey Gaskell (Will Mellor) in 2021.
Harvey had broken out of prison and made his way to the cobbles wanting revenge on Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson), but shot Natasha by mistake.
What came next was a storyline that looked at how Sam processed his grief. He struggled with mutism through this plot, and eventually overcame this by playing chess with Roy Cropper (David Neilson), and also communicating with Hope Stape (Isabella Flanagan) through a walkie talkie.
Jude has been on the show for five years now, which means he’s changed and grown up a lot! As a result, the teen decided to have some new acting headshots created.
He chose to share them on his Instagram, but it did leave fans fearing that the updated snaps were an indication he’s leaving the soap soon.
Fortunately, Jude was quick to reassure his followers and Corrie audience members. In the comments, he confirmed to someone that he hasn’t left the show, he ‘just look[s] very different from last year’s headshots!’.
Coronation Street boss Kate Brooks confirmed recently that Sam will be drawn into a dark storyline this year.
‘It is just the tip of the iceberg.’ she teased. ‘We’ll follow the Will and Megan element quite closely. It’s a very important story to tell and we want to be as truthful as possible. As part of that story Sam will end up getting embroiled in it all.
‘Sam is semi-related to the pub family and he potentially gets wind that something’s amiss. We will see the lengths that Megan will go to manipulate Sam into keeping quiet. It’ll be massively detrimental to Sam’s wellbeing.’
