Maria in Coronation Street is Weatherfield’s sassy hairstylist turned eco-warrior.
She’s married to Gary Windass, is mum to son Liam Connor and stepmum to Gary’s sons Jake and Zack.
She’s Kirk Sutherland’s sister, though they barely speak, and she’s best friends with her one-time love rival Fiz Stape.
And her latest storyline seeing her run for local council is a huge departure for man-eater Maria! Even actress Samia has admitted she’s surprised by the storyline.
So just how did Maria get here?
Who plays Maria in Coronation Street?
Maria in Coronation Street is played by Samia Longchambon.
Samia was just a teenager when she beat both Suzanne Shaw – who later played Eve in Emmerdale – and Girls Aloud’s Kimberley Walsh to the role of Maria.
Before then she’d appeared on the cobbles as an extra, as well as having roles in Children’s Ward, Heartbeat and Doctors.
Read more: 5 plots the soaps NEED to tackle in 2022 from menopause to animal cruelty
Samia’s first appearance was in 2000 and Maria has been at the centre of many storylines since then.
Samia has a daughter, Freya, with her first husband Matt Smith. They divorced in 2011.
In 2013, she took part in Dancing On Ice partnered with Sylvain Longchambon. The pair fell in love and married in 2016, shortly after the birth of their son, Yves.
Maria’s arrival in Weatherfield and romance with Tyrone.
Maria first came to the cobbles when Tyrone Dobbs took his greyhound Monica to the kennels owned by Maria’s parents.
They hit it off and started a romance. Tyrone even proposed on the top of Blackpool Tower.
The pair never got married, though, and they both moved on.
Since their youthful romance, Maria and Ty have reunited once and later Maria – who was suffering with her mental health at the time – developed a toxic obsession with Tyrone.
Maria’s boyfriends
After she split from Tyrone, Maria had a series of disastrous boyfriends.
She had a romance with Jason Grimshaw, who cheated on her. Then with Nick Tilsley, who whisked her off to Canada only to ignore her. And Vikram Desai used her to smuggle drugs.
She even had a one-night stand with Toyah Battersby’s boyfriend John Arnley, and an affair with nasty Charlie Stubbs – who was later murdered by Tracy Barlow.
Who was Maria’s first husband Liam Connor?
Maria in Coronation Street fell in love with Liam Connor and the pair got engaged.
They were thrilled when Maria found out she was pregnant. But she was worried – rightly – that he was developing feelings for his former sister-in-law Carla Connor and thought he was only with her because she was pregnant.
So when Maria discovered her unborn baby had died, she was devastated and found it hard to tell Liam. She gave birth to her stillborn baby boy and named him Paul, after Liam’s late brother.
Later, Carla’
––’
––’
’
’
’
–’
’
’
’’
’
’’
“‘’‘’”
“’’’‘’’”