EX-EASTENDERS actress Cheryl Fergison has revealed she lived apart from her Moroccan husband for nine years.
The soap legend, 56, and Yassine el Jamoun have proved their detractors wrong by standing the test of time and now share a home in Blackpool with her son Alex, 24.
But Cheryl, 58, admitted years ofstruggling with the UK immigration system and applying for visas resulted in Yassine, who is 21 years her junior, being left behind in Morocco.
Cheryl, who played beloved Heather Trott, said they are going strong after 12 years together.
She revealed: “We try to keep our business private but yes financially it can be a strain to get these visas.
“But we’re here now, we’re in Blackpool – the Vegas of the north! – and we’re settled.”
The star – who defended Yassine over the goldigger trope last year – told OK! magazine: “Obviously there’s always speculation when somebody in the public eye meets somebody else, whoever it is.
“But we have had things thrown at us that should never have been thrown at us; things that would have broken others.
“But we got through it. We kept our heads down, we ploughed on. And we’re still here.”
Alex is Cheryl’s son from her previous marriage to Jamshed Saddiqi who she divorced in 2008.
She met Yassine online and initially kept her TV stardom a secret from him.
Cheryl, who won the Best Comedy Performance gong at the 2008 at the Inside Soap Awards, added: “You have to be careful – you have to be able to trust people.
“So we spent the first few months, in a very old fashioned way, writing letters to each other.”
Cheryl flew out to Agadir to meet Yassine and said it was love at first sight when they saw each other at the airport.
“I’d waited all my life for that ‘ping’ feeling. I’d been married before, had relationships before, thought I was in love before but I’d never felt like that,” she said.
Heather Trott actress Cheryl first began playing her infamous character in 2007 before being brutally killed off in 2012.
Since then Cheryl has appeared in Celebrity Big Brother, David Walliams sitcom Big School and the BGT star’s Christmas drama Hansel and Gretel After Ever After.
