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Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati has revealed her late mum never admitted she had dementia, despite suffering from the disease.
The actress, best known for playing Sunita Alahan in the soap, opened up about her mum, who passed away in 219 after battling the illness.
Speaking on Loose Women, the 55-year-old said her mother wanted to keep her condition a ‘secret’, adding that she ‘didn’t want to admit to her mental illness at all.’
‘The word dementia was spoken to her by the GP and that word for her was weaponised,’ Shobna told panelists Katie Piper, Carol McGiffin, Kaye Adams and Sunetra Sarker.
Shobna went on to explain that dementia to her mum, who was a ‘wordsmith’, had negative connotations such as ‘demented’.
It particularly affected her mum because women of her generation were slammed by words such as ‘hysterical’, Shobna said.
The former Dinnerladies star has previously revealed she named her on-screen daughter in Corrie Asha, after her late mother following her dementia diagnosis.
Speaking on Lorraine Kelly in 2020, she said: ‘That was deliberate, I was lucky enough to be gifted that opportunity to name my twins [in] Coronation Street.
‘And since mum was such an avid fan and has been watching it for the last 60 years, she was really pleased.’
When Shobna’s mum died, she shared a heartbreaking Instagram post and admitted she wasn’t sure how to live without her.
She wrote: ‘Our beautiful mum passed away, a few weeks ago, peacefully in her sleep. Still processing, these days are hard. She was our lynchpin connecting us as a family.
‘Our lives are changed and life is very different now. She did her very best and in the last 25 years I grew to know her as a person and the amazing woman that was our mum and for that circumstance and time I am truly grateful .
‘She taught me such a lot … but not how to live without her. Completely heartbroken.’
Shobna has written a book about her mum and the experience of dementia called Remember Me? Discovering My Mother as She Lost Her Memory.
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