Blinged up: Cheryl Fergison, wearing her engagement ring, on the red carpet at the National Television Awards in London last week
She plays the larger-than-life and unlucky in love Heather Trott in EastEnders - and in real life, Cheryl Fergison thought she’d lose her heart again after a bitter divorce three years ago.
But the soap star, 46, has revealed that her life has changed forever since meeting Moroccan Yassine Al-Jermoni, 25, in an internet chat room last April - and that he proposed over Christmas.
Talking in this week's Closer magazine, Cheryl revealed: 'Yassine proposed in a very romantic way. On Christmas Day he made a path of tealights and rose petals leading from the hall to the bedroom.
'He’d written in rose petals on the sheets: "Will you marry me?" He’s my angel. I never thought I’d feel this way again but he’s made me feel like a new woman. I’m so excited, I could run down the red carpet and do a cartwheel.'
She added: 'My EastEnders co-stars haven’t really spoken to me about my engagement - they’ve got their own lives to worry about.'
Cheryl insists that she doesn’t care about the 21-year age gap and having to fund her marriage to penniless Yassine – who’s recently insisted he’s a jewellery seller, not a goatherd as previously reported.
On the square: Cheryl playing hapless single mother Heather Trott in EastEnders
'It’s not about money,' gushed Cheryl, who’s diabetic and admits she’s clinically obese. 'I don’t care if we don’t have a big white wedding. I’d get married in Asda if it meant I could spend the rest of my life with Yassine.'
Cheryl plans to move Yassine – who lives with his elderly parents in Agadir, Morocco – into her house in Sidcup, Kent, but in the meantime, the loved-up couple keep in touch via Skype and online messaging.
The star - who has a 12-year old son, Alex, by her ex-husband Jamshed Saddiqi - adds: 'It’s tough having a long-distance relationship so I can’t wait until we’re both in the same place.
'I already have a fantastic son so I don’t want any more kids with Yassine. We’re already a happy unit.'
Yassin, who lives with his elderly parents in Agadir, a beach resort in the south-west of Morocco, has previously said of Cheryl: 'She's beautiful to me. Why do people only see her fatness? I see her beauty. I love her.'
Source:Dailymail