Coronation Street’s Debbie Webster tearfully says ‘I’m terrified’ as dementia takes over

Debbie Webster broke down in tears at the end of Friday night’s episode(Image: ITV)

Debbie Webster broke down in tears at the end of Friday night’s episode of Coronation Street as the dementia took hold. The hotelier, who is played by Sue Devaney, was diagnosed with the condition last year and it was confirmed that the character would be killed off as part of a long-running storyline.

If dealing with her health wasn’t enough, in the last year, Debbie took the blame for a car crash that Carl Webster (Jonathan Howard) caused after she revealed to him that she was his mum, not his sister as he had thought, and spent time in prison. Now, with her son, and her brother Kevin, having to deal with a gun that has gone missing, Debbie woke up in a state having had a nightmare that they would use it to kill her as her condition deteriorated.

As she went about her day, Debbie had a confrontation with Tracy Barlow in the street, who had prepared some lilies from her florist for an event at the hotel as she was asked, despite Debbie insisting she had ordered roses. Then, Debbie forgot she was meant to keep a gender reveal secret at and blurted it out to the couple before the big announcement.

Debbie began to realise her condition was getting worse (Image: ITV)

Tracy then marched into the hotel demanding payment for the flowers she ordered, but Debbie heard a balloon pop and she yelled: “I don’t have your gun! And I don’t know where it is!”

Back at home, Debbie confronted her husband Ronnie about the whole day as she said: “I think I must be getting worse. Cos my head, it’s like mud sometimes. I don’t want to be walking around out there not knowing who I am, where I am.”

Viewers were quick to react to the emotional scenes, with one writing on X: “Its hard watching Debbie one minute we laugh with her the next we feel sorry for her [crying emoji].”

Another said: “Poor Debbie[heartbreak emoji],” and a third wrote: “I’ve been laughing at Debbie but on a serious note, it must be so frightening.”

Earlier this year, Sue, who first appeared as Debbie Webster in 1984 and then returned in 2019, exclusively told The Mirror: “I find it really interesting to play and going into that deeper, next journey of the illness.

” It’s that thing of who’s gonna look after her around that time? Some days she’ll be lucid and normal and then other days she will have a bad day.

“”That’s how it happens, so it’s been really interesting to play, it’s really moving. I speak to my friend who is a dementia specialist and she tells me the journey I’m going on and if I am doing it correctly. You wanna do it right and I don’t want to not tell the full impact that dementia has on somebody.”