EXCLUSIVE: Hollyoaks Jorgie Porter’s sweet reason for not rushing wedding five years after proposal
Hollyoaks' Theresa McQueen actress Jorgie Porter has been engaged to fiancé Ollie Piotrowski since 2021, but while she planned on marriage in her 30s she has no plans to set a date just yet
Hollyoaks’ Theresa McQueen actress Jorgie Porter has been engaged to fiancé Ollie Piotrowski since 2021(Image: Getty Images)
It’s been 18 years since Jorgie Porter hit our screens as feisty Hollyoaks teen Theresa McQueen, and as she heads towards the big 40, the actress is proud of everything she’s accomplished.
Jorgie marks her milestone birthday in December next year, and while it’s a little way off, she already has mixed feelings about it. “Someone did the maths and I cried,” she says of reaching the end of her 30s, which brought huge moments for her including getting engaged to partner Ollie Piotrowski, and welcoming their two children Forest, three, and Peony, 14 months. Jorgie, 38, adds: “I feel like a 20 year old in my heart. So I am very shocked. When you’re a kid, you’re like,’ Oh my God, 40 is so old,’ and then you get there.
“I’m a big believer in looking back on your life and everything you’ve achieved. I’m so appreciative of the friends I’ve made and what I’ve been through and what I’ve sort of become.
“So I do look at my life and go, actually, I am a superstar in my own right, because I’ve done some really cool, fun things. It is brilliant that I’m now reaching 40.” Jorgie confesses there is one thing she wishes she’d done before leaving her 30s behind, after Ollie’s proposal in 2021. “I was a bit gutted that I’m not going to be married in my 30s,” she shares. “The thought of being a 40-year-old bride, I was like damn. But weddings are so expensive now. I think you’ve got to be a middle-aged person with five jobs and a side hustle to afford it.”
It’s been 18 years since Jorgie Porter hit our screens as feisty Hollyoaks teen Theresa McQueen(Image: Getty Images)
Hollyoaks’ Theresa McQueen actress Jorgie Porter has been engaged to fiancé Ollie Piotrowski since 2021(Image: Jorgie Porter/Instagram)
Holding off on the wedding has had its perks for the couple though, with the pair desperate to involve their little ones in the big day. “We wanted Peony to be able to walk, and she’s walking now. She’s the cutest little hip waddler. She’s a proper girly girl. I used to listen to Beyonce when she was in the womb, and now she bounces her butt to Beyonce. It’s hilarious.”
Jorgie is still in no rush to set a date for her and Ollie’s big day though, revealing they have yet to start planning as she fears she may be jinxed. She reveals: “I’m not really good at planning things in life. I’ll put something in my diary, I’ll write it down on a calendar, and it will never happen. Call it superstitious, I don’t know what it is, but honestly things never work out. It all gets cancelled, and I think it’s because I write them down so I never do that anymore, and I can’t choose a date.”
For now, the actress is enjoying the joys and chaos of motherhood, juggling her soap role with raising two children under four. She tells us she’s learned to ignore the opinions of others, using her Instagram to post brutally honest messages and tips for other mums about the things she’s figured out along the way.
Jorgie marks her milestone birthday in December next year(Image: Instagram/themissyporter)
Jorgie is mum to Forest, three, and Peony, 14 months(Image: themissyporter/Instagram)
She hopes she can encourage other parents to care less, as she explains: “Nobody tells you anything, not the gritty, real truth about becoming a mum. Nobody sat me down and was like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna have to get your boobs out in public. And some people will be funny about it,’ and then you feel a certain way for feeding your own child.
“I don’t care what other people think, and I think that was my main thought with the posts. I want other mums to not care as well. I just want mums to have the confidence and the power to be like, ‘No, I want to do this for my child,’ because that’s what I believe.
“Every mum is different. Every child is different. With Forrest, I breastfed him for six months, and then ended up breastfeeding Peony for a year. And the difference was shocking, because I was like, ‘Oh my God, why is she still carrying on?’
Hollyoaks’ Theresa McQueen actress Jorgie Porter has been on the show for 18 years(Image: Lime Pictures)
“There’s no right or wrong way to do anything. When you’ve got other mums or other people saying, ‘You shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do that,’ there is that weird sort of aggression you get as a mum, like a primal instinct.
“It’s just you learning as you go. No one tells you the struggles of two children too. At the minute, I’ve got snatching and arguing. Peony is only one, old so she doesn’t understand so she’s fighting but she doesn’t understand. You just have to breathe and say it’s fine.”
Fighting over toys aside, Jorgie says her little ones are already best friends. “They wake up in the morning and say each other’s name and then they hug each other.” Jorgie’s Hollyoaks character is also a mum to two children, while they’re at completely different stages. As her eldest daughter Kathleen-Angel turns 16 this year, Jorgie jokes it’s given her a glimpse of the future when her real-life children reach their teens.
She says: “Theresa’s dealing with a different type of parenting at the minute. So it’s like the future, and I’m actually asking other people what’s happening now at this age, because I’m not there yet. The script of what’s happening is not how I would handle things if it was me and my children. So there’s future moments, and actually I should have taken notes with Theresa sooner.”
Jorgie admits her character’s style of parenting is nothing like her own though. “Well, Theresa just left the country all the time, so she kind of didn’t really raise her children,” she says. “I have to fight against things, because Theresa is so different and not the greatest mum. I have to call upon my thoughts and remember that Theresa wouldn’t do things a certain way, whereas I really would. So it’s a fight between acting it out as me or as Theresa.”
