ITV Emmerdale's Gabby star Rosie Bentham says soap helped her cope with dad's death

This week viewers have seen Rosie Bentham at the centre of another major storyline as Gabby Thomas in Emmerdale. Viewers have seen the character convinced that her ex and the father of her son is alive and actually faked his own death earlier this year. But not only that, she thought Jamie Tate was looming large and wanting to take their son.

And during a dramatic week of special flash-forward episodes, we saw Gabby take one of Home Farm's shotgun's into the woods to spook the mystery person she believes has been walking the grounds of the village estate. However, in a case of mistaken identity, she ended up shooting Will Taylor.

As Rosie, who has played Gabby in the ITV soap since 2016, gets stuck into another big plot, her on-screen life ended up mimicking her real one when her father, John, tragically died. His death, from a pulmonary embolism – a blood clot - came two years after her on-screen dad, dementia suffering vicar Ashley, died.

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Rosie, now 20, has opened up to the Mirror about how appearing in the ITV soap helped her cope with her dad's death. She said: "I was doing the whole playing grief and then the next minute I’m actually grieving. Everyone was there for me and I had some time off. I had a text from the cast seeing how I was.

"Work was a saving grace in the sense there was something I still loved to do and was passionate about. Grieving can go wrong for teenagers. People can rebel but that was never me. You think life is so unfair I don’t know why I am here anymore. I knew I had work – something I loved and was passionate about and I got to work every day. Emmerdale 100% gave me stability."

Rosie,