Former Coronation Street star Todd Boyce has opened up about his time on the ITV soap, and how the ending of his character’s storyline was changed.

Todd portrayed the role of Stephen Reid on and off from 1996 until 2023. The character, who is Audrey Roberts’ (Sue Nicholls) son, returned in 2022 to steal his mum’s money.

Very quickly, Stephen’s behaviour spiralled out of control, leading to him murdering three people, who all knew about his true character.

Stephen’s crimes were exposed in 2023, much to a horrified and devastated Jenny Connor (Sally Ann Matthews), his partner. He died as a result of Peter Barlow (Chris Gascoyne) hitting him with his car.

Stephen’s relationship with Jenny began after he killed her boyfriend Leo. The duration between this new partnership forming and Stephen dying wasn’t long – but things could’ve been a lot different!

Star Todd Boyce has been reflecting on his time on the cobbles, and revealed recently that Stephen and Jenny’s romance storyline was going to go on for a while before his demise.

‘I know Iain MacLeod [former Executive Producer] toyed for a little while with me being with Jenny and everything calming down. I was contracted at a year and a half. That was how long we thought it would take’, he explained.

‘And then they toyed with another six months, with the idea that I would move in with Jenny, hang around the Rovers, work at the factory, come back at night. And we would have this proper love story where everything’s forgotten at a while and then it would be even more tragic when I went.’

Continuing his chat with the Inside Soap podcast, Todd added: ‘I think the audience was just baying for blood at that point! I didn’t even dare look at social media. I think they’d had enough, so we said let’s call it at a year and a half.’

In the aftermath of Stephen’s death, Peter wasn’t sentenced to prison, which meant he had to deal with living in Weatherfield and walking past the scene of the incident everyday.

As a result of this, Peter started to struggle. He was tempted to hit the bottle and relapse, but knew he’d be throwing away months of hard work and recovery.

With Carla Connor (Alison King) growing aware of Peter’s mindset, she decided to buy him a one-way ticket to Spain for his Christmas present.

The plan was for Peter to leave and join his friend abroad for a new job. When Carla gave the ticket to him, Peter was taken aback to realise that she wouldn’t be leaving as well, but ultimately understood that Carla was setting him free so he could be happier.

Just before Peter left, a special episode aired that focused solely on him and Carla. It allowed them to look back at their life together and was incredibly emotional.