Shobna Gulati and Anthony Brown
Shobna Gulati broke up with her boyfriend because she felt more like his mum.
The former 'Coronation Street' actress is devastated after splitting with ITV runner Anthony Brown, but admits the 17-year age gap between them meant he actually had more in common with her 18-year-old son Akshay, who she has from a previous relationship.
The 46-year-old star told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "My son loved to be around Anthony. They got on famously. Sometimes when they were on the couch joking about something on the internet and I was in the kitchen making dinner, I did feel like Anthony's mum as well.
"I told him that was hard for me because I wanted to be acting like a girlfriend. In a relationship you want to feel like an equal."
Shobna says things came to a head after the pair returned from fellow 'Loose Women' star Denise Welch's wedding in Portugal last month.
She said: "At Denise's wedding things became unstuck. It was full of veteran entertainers like The Krankies and Christopher Biggins.
"He felt he was in a different world that he didn't fit in to. It became very clear he wanted something different to me and neither of us was prepared to compromise.
"The week after we got back we had a series of rows, so we had a face-to-face discussion. It was emotional and angry. In the end I wasn't prepared to give the relationship another chance."
The actress has been vocal about her heartbreak since calling it quits with Anthony, posting on Twitter: "I've nothing to feel ashamed of and I regret nothing. / And for all those asking no im not ok. (sic)".
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