Shobna Gulati is best known for their work on Coronation Street, but behind the scenes has been on a long journey of romantic and gender discoveries – and now has the love of a lifetime

Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati is thriving in her new life with a mystery romance

Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati has revealed that they now identifies as non-binary with she/they pronouns, and that her romantic life is better than ever with a new lover. The actress, who played Sunita Alahan for 12 years, said they had felt that way about their gender identity all their life, but it was only more recently that they had realised there was a word to describe it.

Speaking on their love life, Shobna, 58, suggested that they’d had a connection to their new special someone for a long time, despite past marriages and relationships.

The former ITV soap star first tied the knot back in 1990, sharing a traditional Hindu ceremony with former husband Anshu Srivastava.

However, they went on to divorce just four years later in May 1994. During their separation, Shobna got pregnant by another man and gave birth to their son Ashkay in 1994.

Former Corrie mainstay Shobna Gulati has opened themselves up to dating any gender after coming out as non-binary(Image: ITV)

A few years later, Shobna embarked on a romance with former Emmerdale actor Gary Turner, and the duo dated between 1999 and 2003 before their relationship started to fizzle out.

Following their split, Shobna started dating Anthony Brown, who was 17 years their junior. However, their age gap led to problems in their relationship, eventually leading them to part ways as Shobna “felt like his mother.”

After all of the ups and downs of their romantic life up until now, Shobna has revealed that they are currently in love. Speaking to Kaye Adams on her How to be 60 podcast, the actor said: ‘I think I’ve loved this person all my life.”

And, in contrast to her past high-profile relationships, Shobna said that in the future they would happily date someone regardless of whether they were male or female.

The star explained: “That is also something I’m looking at – what that means to me. So yes, I would go for a person absolutely, regardless of their gender.”

Much as Shobna would date someone without caring about gender, their own gender identity has opened up. “I’ve become more happy describing myself as a person. What do people call it now? Non binary. So, I suppose that’s who I am,” they said on the podcast.

“I’ve never had a word for it, but I’ve learnt from our younger generation what that might look like in terms of a word, because I know what it feels like in terms of being me.”

Shobna explained: “All the way through my life I’ve never had the words for that and I’ve never managed to explain that and I suppose my immediate family have not really thought about it.

“They’ve just thought: ‘Shobna is either extremely feminine or extremely masculine.’ Because I was just accepted as a person who fell out of the tree and equally the person who put on all this make up and did a dance.”