Amy Nuttall is no stranger to weathering a relationship roller coaster on screen.
As Downton Abbey housemaid Ethel Parks she had an affair with gentry, gave birth to an illegitimate child and later turned to prostitution after being spurned from society.
In Emmerdale, her character Chloe Atkinson indulged in affairs, faked a pregnancy, and was forced to leave the village in disgrace after her tangled web of deceit unravelled.
Yet, shockingly, it’s off-screen that Amy has battled with some of her most difficult personal setbacks, having dealt with a cheating husband and the loss of her beloved mother in the space of a few months.
On Monday, it emerged the 41-year-old actress had taken back her love rat husband Andrew Buchan for a third time, seven months after reportedly dumping him for failing to stick to her ‘marriage rules’.
It’s the latest twist in her convoluted love story with Andrew, 45, who turned her world upside down in 2022 when it emerged, he had cheated on her with his co-star Leila Farzad, who he had met on the set of his BBC series, Better.
Of course, Amy could not have predicted this turn of events when she first started dating Broadchurch star Andrew in 2007.
They did not rush into marriage, tying the knot in 2012, with Amy no doubt wary after having her heart broken by her Emmerdale co-star and former boyfriend Ben Freeman.
In another example of fiction blending with reality, the pair had been on-off lovers in the ITV soap before striking up an off-screen romance that lasted for four years.
Amy described him as the ‘first real love of my life’, but much like the tumultuous storylines they played out on TV, their romance ended in tragedy when Ben was said to have cheated on her, causing a shock split in 2005.
Refusing to give up on the idea of love, Amy moved on with Andrew two years later, and in an interview before their wedding she admitted: ‘I’ve known for ages he’s The One.’
She confessed to having an ‘inkling’ he was going to propose during their holiday – which turned out to be correct – and they went on to welcome a daughter and a son, now nine and five respectively.
It was this same inkling that led to the demise of their union, however, as in 2022 her intuition alerted her to Andrew’s betrayal.
She is said to have grown concerned that he had been unfaithful after seeing pictures of him with Leila on social media, in which the pair appeared a little too close for comfort.
Amy’s fears were confirmed when she discovered he had been staying in a hotel close to their home – while claiming to be away working on location – and he had purchased racy lingerie in a different size to hers.
A source told The Sun: ‘As time moved on there were some tell-tale signs that he had become close to Leila — just something in his mannerisms and in their social media posts together.
‘But the final straw was the lingerie — that’s what clinched it. Amy just knew instinctively that it wasn’t meant for her.’
