Thanks to high profile roles in shows such as The Moorside and Gavin and Stacey, Sheridan Smith is a household name.
But it was her own real life and personality that had viewers gripped last night, with one-off documentary Sheridan Smith: Coming Home.
The ITV special left viewers in tears as Sheridan opened up about her dad Colin’s death from cancer last year.
Sheridan prepared to return to the house he lived in for the first time since he passed away during the show.
But it was while singing a song dedicated to her late father that proved too much for Sheridan, who became overcome with emotion.
As the show aired, viewers took to Twitter in their droves to praise the star. “Your song for your dad had me in tears twice,” wrote one user, while another added: “The song Sheridan wrote about her dad had me in tears!”
@Sheridansmith1 your song for your dad had me in tears twice, I am full of admiration for you, well done for facing your demons and putting your life back together. Wishing you so much luck for the future 🙂 #SheridanSmith #SheridanSmithComingHome #itv
— caron poe (@_carrie_p) 4 November 2018
The song Sheridan wrote about her dad had me in tears! 😭#sheridansmith#cominghome#SheridanSmithcominghome
— shana ✨ (@shanaskimming_) 4 November 2018
Loved it @Sheridansmith1, that song for your dad 😭 cried my eyes out #SheridanSmithComingHome so nice to have you back and to see you happy x
— Carly (@CarlyCarlyscott) 4 November 2018
@Sheridansmith1 That was absolutely beautiful loved seeing how happy you are and doing what you love ❤️ but proper teared up at you performing Are You Just Sleeping? 😪 You should be so proud of yourself X #SheridanSmithComingHome
— Alexander (@alexnduh) 4 November 2018
“I kind of lost it a bit after [my dad] died,” Sheridan admitted during the documentary.
“I’ve come out the other side now and I need to get it all out through my music,” she revealed, noting that her mum urged her to return to London to continue her theatre stint in the show Funny Girl despite her dad’s 2017 diagnosis.
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“As soon as my Dad got that diagnosis it was like ‘I’m not leaving your side, I’m not leaving you.’ And my mum was like, ‘Well, you’ve got to get back, you’ve got the show, you can’t let people down’ and rightly so.”
Sheridan credited her parents, both former entertainers, for her strong work ethic.
However, she ultimately dropped out of the show and returned to Doncaster to be with her dad until he passed away last year.
“They’ve taught me that the show goes on, even if they’re ill. And I get that but at the time I was like, ‘Hang on a minute, reality check, I don’t want to leave my dad’,” Sheridan revealed.
“My dad was saying the same, ‘Oh love, don’t worry about me’ but how can you not, he was my rock.
“I love my mum but I just didn’t want to go back but I went back and I got on the train to do the show and I thought, ‘I can’t do it’, it just felt so weird like, ‘How can I be here taking applause?’
“I just thought ‘I want to be sat with my dad, sat on his chair cuddling him. I ran away from that, I ran away from that situation.”
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