‘It could be career-ending’ admits Coronation Street’s Rob Mallard as he gives bleak update on degenerative illness
ACTOR Rob Mallard has shared a bleak update on his rare health battle in an announcement that is no doubt set to worry fans.
The popular star plays Daniel Osbourne on the ITV soap but off-screen he has been candid about dealing with a degenerative illness.
He has sadly battled with an essential tremor since the age of 14 and has been honest about how there is little-to-nothing to be done to help improve it.
The tremor is a neurological condition which causes uncontrollable shaking in a person.
Over the last 10 years, Rob has admitted that the condition has become more “pronounced” with the shakes affecting everything from his legs, hands and arms as well as causing voice shakes and quivers.
Now, in a bombshell admission, Rob has confessed that his illness could be “career-ending”.
The actor confessed: “In the last 10 years it has become a lot more pronounced and if it follows that trajectory in my personal life it’s going to be difficult and annoying.
“Professionally it could be career-ending.”
He continued to The Mirror: “It has been suggested that wrap it into the character, which I’m not averse to, but I’d rather not do that now. I don’t want it to pigeonhole me.”
The actor previously opened up on dealing with the illness to Gethin Jones and Helen Skelton during an interview on Morning Live.
He told the show’s hosts: “I went to the doctors and did roughly a year testing things – thyroid, brain scans because they were really unsure what it was.
“They came back and said I had an essential tremor and there was nothing they could do for me to ‘come back if your symptoms get worse and we can try and control them’.”
He continued: “Because they told me there was nothing I could do about it, I just put it to the back of my mind and tried to forget about it.
“It wasn’t until I got into my early 20s that it progressed and really got worse that I thought I should really look into this.
“That was when I really got the full scope of it and realised it could be quite degenerative over time.”
Rob’s condition was first brought to the attention of the public eye when during one of his first ever live TV interviews on This Morning in 2017, worried fans took to Twitter as they picked up on his uncontrollable shaking during his chat with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield.
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Following the slew of comments, he returned to the programme two months later where he decided to reveal all on the condition.
He said to them at the time: “Like most people, it manifests first in the hands, but then it can spread so I sometimes get it in the back of my neck and my head will shake.
“Then it’s a progressive disease, so by the time I’m 50 it could well be in the voice box, down the back of the spine, the legs, the whole of the arms. It could be quite debilitating. I’ve had this for nearly 10 years.”