Lisa Riley has played Mandy Dingle on Emmerdale for almost three decades and while her character has had her fair share of heartbreak, it appears Lisa’s love life has been just as rocky
Emmerdale’s Lisa Riley, who has portrayed Mandy Dingle intermittently for nearly three decades on the ITV soap, has had a tumultuous love life both on and off screen.
Mandy has experienced her fair share of heartache during her two decades on the show, and it seems that Lisa’s personal love life has been equally turbulent.
In her 2013 autobiography, Lisa candidly discussed her challenging romantic history, which included her former lover revealing his homosexuality and falling in love with a married man.
Lisa’s private love life away from the ITV spotlight to reveal what her heart has endured and as Mandy prepares to marry Paddy Kirk for the second time, we look inside her rocky romances.
In an excerpt from her autobiography, Never Judge A Book By Its Cover, Lisa recounts her disastrous dating past.
She discloses that she once shared a flat with her best friend Darren, whom she was extremely attracted to.
After a few drinks, they ended up sleeping together and became “friends with benefits”, but Lisa desired more.
However, she later saw Darren kissing a man in a nightclub, and he subsequently got himself a boyfriend.
Lisa then fell for Lee Cooper, never questioning “how a guy on a waiter’s salary could afford Gucci shoes”. 10 months into their relationship, Lee admitted to Lisa that he had been accused of fraud.
He was later sentenced to three and a half years, and Lisa writes in her book that her “whole world fell apart” and “everything crumbled”.
Over Christmas 2002, Lisa appeared in a pantomime in Swansea and struck up a conversation with set painter Nick Holly.
In her book, she describes him as “wasn’t exactly an oil painting” and notes that he was nearly a decade her senior.
Nick confessed to Lisa that he was a married man with children, but she admits in her book that she found the situation “ashamed to say I found the situation a little bit naughty and exciting”.
Despite their efforts to maintain their relationship outside of the Panto environment, things didn’t work out for them and they eventually parted ways.
Lisa first met American musician Al in 2014 after being introduced by mutual friends. Four years into their relationship, Al proposed, but the couple are not hurrying to get married.
The TV star is quite private about her partner, not even disclosing his last name, but she frequently mentions him in interviews and shares snaps on social media.
Discussing her fiance, the actress told the Mirror in 2020: “I already call him my husband and he calls me his wife. We just haven’t walked down the aisle or exchanged rings and paperwork. “In the six years we’ve been together, we’ve never spent as much time together as we have this year and we still love each other. “.
Emmerdale airs weeknights on ITV1 and ITVX at 7.30pm
