Coronation Street fans ‘gutted’ after shock exit of soap legend after just three years

Claire Sweeney is exiting Coronation Street after only three years, it has been confirmed.

Sweeney plays Cassie Plummer, the erratic daughter of Maureen Lipman’s Evelyn Plummer and long-lost mum to Alan Halsall’s Tyrone Dobbs.

Sweeney herself has not yet commented on her exit, but has been excitedly posting photographs on her Instagram of her new job: playing Miss Hannigan in a UK and Ireland tour of the musical Annie.

ITV said: “Cassie will be on the cobbles until the summer during which time she will continue to make her presence felt in Weatherfield leading up to a great exit storyline.”

Sweeney joined the Corrie cast in 2023, marking her return to soaps 20 years after the end of Brookside, the Channel 4 soap opera that turned her into a household name.

In a statement at the time, Sweeney expressed her excitement over her new gig. “Even though I’ve been lucky enough to have enjoyed an amazingly varied career for nearly 40 years, being cast in Coronation Street is, to me, better than being cast in a Hollywood movie!”

Cassie struggled with drug addiction during her time on the cobbles, and also exploited her position as the carer for William Roache’s Ken Barlow by drugging him and stealing his valuables. She also worked as an office clerk at Websters’ Autocentre, and an office assistant at Street Cars.

Corrie fans have expressed a range of reactions to the news of Sweeney’s departure, with many suggesting that the show hadn’t utilised her effectively.

“I’m gutted Claire is leaving,” one person wrote on X. “Cassie was such an underused character and had so much potential that Corrie never utilised. Happy for Claire though and can’t wait to see her shine in Annie.”

Another person wrote: “Mixed feelings about Claire Sweeney’s exit. I don’t think she’s reached her full potential, but it’s been three years this summer so at some point you have to ask whether the potential was ever really there.”

Coronation Street recently hit the headlines over its high-profile crossover episode with fellow ITV soap Emmerdale, in which characters from both series were involved in a deadly car crash on the motorway between Leeds and Manchester.

The former Corrie star Helen Flanagan also recently discussed her time working on the soap, and accused the series of “sexualising” her when she was 16 years old.