Simon Gregson from Coronation Street has revealed how his first decade on the popular soap was "hell" amid the abuse he suffered in his real life.

Simon joined the ITV show back in 1989 aged just 15 and played the well-known character Steve McDonald.

Speaking about his time on the programme, Steve revealed that “the pros outweigh the cons the older you get and the longer you’ve been in the show”.

Simon Gregson reveals his first decade on Coronation Street was 'hell'

Speaking on the latest Living With Lucy, the Coronation Street star said:  “At the beginning, my character wasn’t very well-liked. That reflected in your real life. The first ten years were hell."

Simon Gregson added that he doesn't know how he'd cope now if his son was going through the same ordeal at such a young age.

He said: “I really don’t know how I got through it. [My son] Alfie is 15 now. If Alfie went through a tenth of what I was going through, I wouldn’t be able to cope with it for him. I really don’t know why I survived, I really honestly don’t.”

He told Lucy Kennedy: “I used to be a terrible worrier, which affected me massively.

“I went through a time where I was so worried about stuff that I actually started to get a bit of a problem, doubt myself, hate myself, worry about everything.

“It was a problem, took me a while to get out of the situation. But I just suddenly thought to myself, when I’m on my deathbed, am I going to sit there and go, ‘I wish I worried more’ — and it was like an epiphany.”

In a previous appearance on the Irish podcast Tis Yourself, the ITV actor said he received a lot of abuse when he was younger from people his own age.

He said: “It’s instant jealousy because they think you’re ­multi-millionaires, which obviously is not the case. And secondly, they have a preconception.

“They’re like, ‘He’s off the telly, therefore he’s going to be an ­a***h*le. He’s going to have his head up his backside, he’s going to be a show-off, he’s going to be ­big-headed and he’s going to think he’s great.’"

He added that it wasn't until his late 30s that he began caring less about what others thought of him.