EX-CORRIE star Helen Flanagan was “desperate” for throuple-loving ex-boxer David Haye to dump his girlfriend for her, the Sun on Sunday can reveal.
Last night pals of David said Helen was “besotted” with him and wanted him to leave Sian Osborne, 33, whom he has dated since 2020, in order to have a monogamous relationship with her instead.
The 35-year-old actress embarked on a passionate fling which “consumed” her and led to a string of liaisons at a hotel with the 45-year-old sportsman, who practices polyamory, or having multiple partners with his partner’s consent.
It began in the aftermath of her split from her fiance, the former Chelsea, Aston Villa and Manchester City footballer Scott Sinclair, with whom she has three children.
But while Helen believed she was in love with David, he confessed to her: “All I want from you is your body, that’s enough for me”.
She reveals she had a breakdown after their relationship — which she described as “toxic” — acrimoniously ended.
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‘Mad about him’
The pal told The Sun on Sunday: “Helen wanted David to leave Sian for her. She was mad about David and desperately wanted him to herself.
“But David cares deeply for Sian, and he was simply never going to leave her for Helen.
“That was out of the question.”
Helen, who played Rosie Webster on the ITV soap for 12 years until 2012, has lifted the lid on her relationship with David in her upcoming book Head & Heart: Break-ups, Breakdowns and Being Rosie.
He was the first person she dated after the end of her 13-year relationship with fiance Scott, with whom she has Matilda, 10, Delilah, seven and Charlie, four.
Having first met when they were both contestants on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here in 2012, Helen and David exchanged occasional messages over the years.
But in YEAR?? the spark between them was lit when David made contact after he saw a lingerie shoot Helen had done for underwear brand Ann Summers. He messaging her that she looked “hot” in the lace and stockings.
He then seduced her over a series of messages and calls telling her she was a “classy queen”.
Their first night together was at a luxury hotel — where Helen dressed up for him in a blue pyjama set — after he freely admitted he was in an open relationship.
Then, over a period of months they regularly met for a series of romantic encounters. He called her nearly every day for seven months.
She said: “He made me feel like I was the most beautiful girl in the world.
“I was in love with him.
“I believed for a while that he might leave Sian for me. He even started talking about wanting a baby together.”
David — who was previously said to have been in a throuple with Sian and ex-Saturdays singer Una Healy — asked Helen a number of times if she would meet Sian, but she refused.
She said: “I didn’t feel comfortable with that idea. I’m not a prude, but I’ve never been into that.”
I think David’s plan had possibly been to get me and Sian involved in a threesome.
Helen Flanagan
But when he invited her to join him at a boxing match at Wembley in 2023 she met Sian. However she feared that David wanted to embark on a threesome in what became a watershed moment in their relationship.
She told The Daily Mail which is serialising her memoir, that David told her model Sian was excited to meet her. And when they met she was friendly.
Recalling the encounter, Helen added: “Then David joined us and said to Sian, ‘She’s hot, isn’t she?’, which was so cringe, and made me want the ground to swallow me whole.
“I think David’s plan had possibly been to get me and Sian involved in a threesome that night, but when I made it clear that wasn’t going to happen, he told her that he was ‘just going to take Helen home’.”
While she and David spent the night together, the events led her to a dawning realisation. On the one hand she felt guilt, but on the other envy that she was the other woman.
She said: “She was the one he was devoted to. I was just the bit on the side.
Distressing thoughts
She also said: “But I always felt like I could be the girl who was able to change him.”
Helen also courageously reveals in her memoir that since her childhood in Bolton she has struggled with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
The condition causes distressing and unwanted thoughts and repetitive behaviours, along with anxiety and “spirals of emotion”.
It began before she joined the cast of the ITV soap.
She said that as a child attending church, sometimes “sexual thoughts would flare up”. During adulthood, when she was driving in her car at night, she would fear a knifeman was hiding in the back seat.
She was also wracked with fear that instead of sticking to the Coronation Street script, she would say something “absolutely horrific”.
The devoted mum also poignantly revealed that her OCD returned with a vengeance after the birth of her eldest daughter Matilda.
Helen stressed she was speaking out so others who have the condition realised they were not alone.
While she was “on cloud nine” at becoming a mother, she feared her daughter would die, and she had an irrational terror of exposing her to germs.
She admitted: “At my lowest points I thought about taking my own life.
“I want to emphasise here that I truly loved being a mum, but when the anxiety and the OCD barged their way in and took control of my head I was defenceless.”