Benidorm's Crissy Rock's unexpected romance with younger man she met during show

02 October 2023 , 07:00

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Crissy and her husband Julian Buck (Image: instagram.com/crissyrock_)

Benidorm star Crissy Rock has revealed that she met her younger husband in Benidorm while filming the hit TV show, and never "in a million years" thought they would end up together. The comedian and actress from Liverpool, 65, met dapper businessman Julian Buck, who is 10-years her junior, while she was on a night out with the cast.

Crissy, who was married twice before and has two daughters, met Julian in the garden of the Riviera Hotel which is very apt considering ITV's Benidorm was all about the ongoings of a hotel in the Spanish city. She exclusively tells the Mirror: "We were all sitting outside. There were loads of people there and before we knew it was just me and him sitting there."

Crissy Rock played Janey York on the hit show (ITV)

Crissy and her husband Julian Buck (instagram.com/crissyrock_)

"Then I said was it something I’ve said," jokes the star, who played fiery hotel manageress Janey York in the sitcom. "Then he was talking to me and he said, 'Do you mind if I keep in touch as a friend?' Never ever, ever in a million years… I've never looked at him that day and thought I was going to marry him. It just happened, we are like mates. Sometimes I think, 'Does he really love me?'"

"He's ten years younger, I don’t even know what he sees in me," says Crissy, who appeared on I'm A Celeb in 2011, before confirming that "he’s lovely really." Julian is a businessman but Crissy says he is very supportive and interested in her career. "He is dead funny," she reveals, "He loves this side of the business. He is always saying ‘I wish I had a talent!’"

Crissy and Julian met at a Benidorm hotel (instagram.com/crissyrock_)

The pair also bonded over their love of Abba, and were planning a trip to the Abba Museum in Stockholm, when she chatted with the Mirror at last year’s Benicon - a fan convention for the much-loved series that aired from 2007 to 2018. Crissy and Julian got married in 2018 in a movie-themed wedding at Stockport cinema, which was attended by a whole host of stars including Shameless actress Tina Malone as well as Brookside and The Royale Family legend Ricky Tomlinson.

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However, Crissy isn’t the only British actor on Benidorm to find love in the place the show was filmed. Fellow co-stars Laila Zaidi, 30, and Adam Gillen, 38, who played Liam and Cyd on the show, recently announced their engagement after falling in love on set in 2018. Yesterday, September 28, Laila took to Instagram to share the happy news that Adam had proposed in Croatia. The actress shared a picture of the two grinning ear to ear as she showed of her sparkling ring, and captioned it, "A whole week of being a diiiirty flirttttyyy thirty fiancée."

Lydia Veljanovski