CORRIE favourite Georgia May Foote was axed after refusing a storyline in which her character converted to Islam, a former co-star claims.
Georgia, 27 — who played Katy Armstrong for five years — was handed a £100,000 contract in 2014 but dumped a year later.
Marc Anwar, who left the cobbles in 2016 after three years playing Sharif Nazir, said she had rejected plans for character Katy to fall in love with his onscreen grandson Zeedan.
He told The Sun on Sunday: “The storyline was that he would then ask her to become a Muslim.
“But when that was put to her she declined. I don’t know what her reasons were.
“But she was adamant she didn’t want to do that storyline. And so the response was, ‘OK, see you later.’
“They couldn’t just let her go, because they would have been forced to continue paying her.
“But she spent the rest of the year doing bit scenes here and there.”
Georgia — who went on to star in Strictly — later told how she was “gutted” at being axed, describing it as “like being dumped by a boyfriend.”
Meanwhile Marc, 62, claimed 30-year-old Sair Khan told him that some of her Muslim relatives were upset over the behaviour of her glamorous character, his grand-daughter Alya Nazir.
He said: “When Sair joined, her very first scenes showed her letting her hair down in some nightclub, snogging people and that kind of thing.
“She has had scenes where she has been rolling around in bed with people.
“In the Muslim religion, it doesn’t matter if you are playing a part, you do what you do.
“And as far as I understand it, some of Sair’s relatives weren’t too happy because of the show.
That’s what she told me quite soon after we began working together. It was her choice, of course.”
Marc also told of:
- BUST-UPS with Shelley King, — his screen wife Yasmeen — who he said was notorious for scrounging canteen food;
- HOW show chiefs did not know what to do with the Muslim characters they had introduced;
- WHY he disliked stars Jimmi Harkishin, who plays Dev Alahan, and Antony Cotton (Sean Tully); and
- THE traumatic story behind allegedly racist tweets that got him fired.
Marc arrived on the Street as part of the Street’s first Muslim family. But he said: “Shelley was impossible.
"On set, she was always trying to direct me in scenes, and so one day I decided to confront her in the show’s green room.
“She just went off on one, effing and blinding at the top of her voice. I couldn’t believe it.
“I knew she could be difficult but she was downright selfish and rude. After that I communicated with her on a need-to-know basis for almost two months. She had shown her true colours as a b*tchy colleague.
“Her pettiness was a constant embarrassment to me, especially in the canteen.
“Since food is free for cast, she would pack a bag with food to take to her dressing room.
“But then she would pack another one to take home for her evening meal. It was so sad and embarrassing.
“All the canteen staff would share glances about it.
“If there was any extra food brought in for dressing the set, she would go asking, ‘Can I have this? Can I have that?’
“I was like, ‘Really? It wasn’t very classy.’ But she was always scrounging.”
Marc praised show chiefs for bringing in a Muslim family but said they were soon left sidelined, prompting Jimi Mistry (his screen son Kal Nazir) to leave six months before the end of his contract.
He said: “I couldn’t blame him, because nothing was happening with the family. Bosses had no clue what to do with us, so we all had bit parts.
Why I sent furious tweets
THE tweets that got Marc Anwar sacked were sparked by a secret family trauma.
He said he called Indians “b*****ds” and “c***s” while watching the Kashmir conflict between Indians and Pakistanis unfold on the news.
A 20-year-old male relative had vanished on the way to a mosque in the area and was never seen again. Marc said: “My extended family, on my mother’s side, were told that unless they stopped looking for this man, a girl would vanish.
“In Kashmir, if a girl vanishes, it often means she will be gang-raped. That threat came a few days before I sent the tweets.
“I shouldn’t have sent them and I have since apologised unreservedly to all Indians, and to anyone else who was offended. I have many Indian friends and have worked with many Indian colleagues. But Kashmir, and the danger to Muslims there, was what was going through my head at the time.”
“When it was decided Jimi would be killed off in an explosion, I thought, ‘At least we’ll have a good storyline for the next few weeks.’
“But it went with more of a whimper than a bang. Yet again, the camera was elsewhere and the family were the bridesmaids, not the bride.”
Marc also told how the lack of storylines hit the cast members — who are paid per episode — hard, revealing: “Builders would have been paid more than us.”
Marc said he got on well with Corrie legends such as Bill Roache (Ken Barlow), Barbara Knox (Rita Tanner) and Malcolm Hebden (Norris Cole) — and had a flirty friendship with Sue Nicholls (Audrey Roberts).
He said “Malcolm in particular was really nice. I often had a laugh and a giggle with him. I also had a bit of a flirtation going on with Audrey, which came from her.
“But there were others I didn’t get on with. Jimmi Harkishin was very much part of the in-crowd and one of the favourites on the show, but I found him very shallow.
“Another person I couldn’t stand was Antony Cotton. He didn’t say a single word to me in three years on the show.
“I once or twice tried a ‘Hi’ but was always met with a stony face. I found it really sad.
“I remember complaining in a meeting with the then-producer Stuart Blackburn, who just laughed it off and said, ‘Yes, but he’s our Anthony’.
“He, like several others, were favourites on the show, and that made them untouchable.”
In August 2016 Marc was told his contract, due to end in November, was not going to be renewed but the door would be left open for a return.
Then in October he was unceremoniously sacked after posting a series of tweets about Indians persecuting Muslims in the disputed province of Kashmir.
He went on to apologise unreservedly, insisting they were sent “in the heat of the moment”.
But he said he feels he was “butchered” by Kate Oates, who had recently replaced Stuart.
Marc said she sacked him with the words: “Don’t bother coming in on Monday.”
He said the fallout from the tweets left him facing an uphill battle to win acting work.
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In the meantime, Marc is determined to continue championing his community charity.
In 2006 he invested £270,000 in setting up Project 29 with the aim of training young people of all ethnicities in media.
It included setting up a multi-faith library, a recording studio and radio station. He said: “I don’t want those tweets — and how I was sacked — to be my legacy.”
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