Emmerdale’s Jaye Griffiths has opened up about being in an abusive relationship.

At the start of October, soap fans were hit with the shocking revelation that devious Emmerdale newcomer Celia Daniels is, in fact, the top dog of the sinister drugs operation that has silently infiltrated the village.

Off-screen, there’s been further revelations made by actress and television icon Jaye Griffiths about her private life, bravely opening up about her experience of an abusive relationship, childhood racism and ageism in the entertainment industry.

The star previously opened up on Kaye Adams’ How to be 60 podcast. Jaye detailed her horrific ordeal at the hands of an abusive man with whom she spent five years, marred by control, violence and gaslighting.

‘I couldn’t tell anybody because I was so ashamed. I disappeared for about five years’, she said.

‘You would now use the term gaslight – but I couldn’t make a decision. I didn’t know if what I thought was real was real, because he would constantly tell me I was wrong and the day after he hit me, I would get jewellery.’

‘I lived in this twilight existence and I had to start again. I had to find out that someone walking behind you didn’t mean you were going to get clobbered, that people sometimes said truthful things.

‘But that took a very long time. When I finally went to the police they said on average a woman is hit 37 times before she tells anyone. All I did was lie – ‘no, I’m fine thanks, I’m fine.’ That’s exhausting.’

Yesterday, Jaye appeared on ITV’s Loose Women to open up about her situation.

The interview was incredibly emotional for Jaye, as she discussed her abusive relationship, and how much her life has changed.

A minute into the chat, Jaye’s voice broke as she told hosts Kaye, Katie Piper, Sue Cleaver and Nadia Sawalha that she feels ‘sorry and sad’ for the past version of her, and how it took ‘so long to extricate myself and find myself again’.

Jaye described her life now as ‘gentle and peaceful’ and states that she isn’t ‘scared every minute of everyday’.

‘I go right back, and yet I am myself again, and I am living a life that is so beautiful. I love my home and my husband and our gentle, quiet life we lead. There is no drama at home.’

As the conversation continued, Jaye reflected on the tiny changes that appeared in her life as she began to heal from the relationship.

‘Suddenly you are back and you are alone and you can do things. You can open the curtains at 4am, at 5am, at 12 o’clock in the middle of the day. You can stay in your pyjamas all day. You can have little victories.’

‘If you put the milk in the wrong place in the fridge, that could have consequences, and then you get your own fridge and it doesn’t matter where you put the milk’.

Towards the end of the incredibly powerful chat, Jaye discussed her new relationship. She says her boundaries ‘are made of concrete’ and that her partner had to learn a lot but equally, they had to navigate a difficult path together.

Jaye has portrayed Celia in Emmerdale since June of this year.

Amid the drug dealing operation, we learnt at the start of this week that Celia is also running a trafficking and slavery ring.

On Monday, we discovered that Paddy Kirk’s (Dominic Brunt) father Bear Wolf (Joshua Richards) was lured into Ray Walters (Joe Absolom) and Celia’s dangerous world shortly after her left the village in the summer.

Bear was told by Ray that in exchange for work on Celia’s farm, he’d be given a bed, food, and a roof over his head.

Bear is working and living alongside multiple other vulnerable adults, in a storyline that highlights modern day slavery.

Ray is Celia’s adoptive son. She picked him up from the streets and raised him in her dangerous world. As a result of this, dealing and taking advantage of people is all Ray has really known. While he’s to blame for a multitude of crimes, Celia’s grooming also makes him a victim as well.

He’s been given a glimpse into an alternate universe by spending time with Laurel Thomas (Charlotte Bellamy). Ray likes Laurel and she serves as a reminder that his life could’ve been very different. He knows that he won’t ever be with her long term, but enjoys the connection that they have none the less.

Speaking about Ray and Laurel and what’s ahead for them, Jaye said: ‘Laurel goes to kiss him, and he won’t kiss her. That breaks Celia’s heart, because that means she’s not a floozy, she’s not a one-off. That he’s so serious about her, he won’t even kiss her.

‘He likes her that much, and that is too real for Celia. So now the possibility is he might leave her, and I think that would come close to breaking Celia. It was only four lines in that scene of, “it broke her heart to witness it”, and then she covers it up, of course.

‘She is very much about losing control of him, but underneath that it’s about someone else loving him, he’s mine. She has managed their situation because they move so frequently, that she’s the only one he relies on, the one he turns to, the one who’s forever sorting things out for him and with him.

‘To lose that, that would mean Celia was truly alone in the universe, and I’m not sure she’s ready for that. That was a one moment we could show an inch of fragility, a moment of weakness, because otherwise you just see her strolling about hurting people.’