A lot of outlandish things happen in Emmerdale. Plane and helicopter crashes, serial killers, deadly storms…

Yet it appears that something much more mundane has shaken the cast to its core: Ryan Hawley returning to social media.

Ryan, who plays Robert Sugden, is well known to be rather private and doesn’t maintain much of a presence on the old soshy meeds.

However, after Emmerdale’s dominant performance at the TV Choice Awards that saw Bradley Riches (Lewis Barton) named Best Soap Newcomer, on-screen hubby Danny Miller (Aaron Dingle) scoop the award for Best Soap Performance and the show snag the overall Best Soap prize, he logged back in to the ‘Gram to celebrate the victories.

Uploading a carousel of images, including one of himself, Emmerdale producer Laura Shaw, Bradley, Aaron, Amelia Flanagan (April Windsor), Louise Jameson (Mary Goskirk) and Shebz Miah (Kammy Hadiq) celebrating the various wins, and a further two of him and Danny playing around backstage.

‘Congratulations to everybody at [Emmerdale] for the clean sweep the other night! Especially [Bradley Riches], [Laura Shaw] and of course [Danny Miller]. Very well deserved! Proud to be part of the show!’ he captioned the post.

Bradley and Shebz themselves hopped in to the comment section of the post to poke fun at the rarity of Ryan’s post.

‘Ryan posting? WTF? Welcome to the dark side! THANK YOU DIVA XXX’ Bradley jested. ‘Pahahahaha man like Ryan posting on the gram u kno’ Shebz added.

Fans were equally as gassed to witness Ryan’s Insta return.

‘RYAN POSTING? HELLO’ one posted, while another said ‘You remembered your instagram password? We are all winning today!! congratulations on the win, can’t even explain how happy I am that you came back and we have robron back!!’

A Robron fan commented: ‘Ryan posting, Robron back together, Danny and Ryan 2026 content, 17 year old me would be going crazy! Now all you need to do is make a TikTok!’ while another joked: ‘Did someone hack Ryan’s insta? we are more than back and winning!!!’

‘Oh my goodness! Congratulations on the wins guys! Never stop posting now Ryan’ pleaded one fan, while another added: ‘ryan you’re back?! amazing pictures with danny and congrats on the win too guys!’

There were a ton more comments in a similar vein: ‘congratulations danny!! i cant believe you posted again ryan we love to see it,’ and ‘wake up everyone, ryan posted on instagram !! so glad you’re back, ryan!’

Ryan’s return

Ryan returned as Robert Sugden last year, six years after his alter-ego was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of sister Victoria Sugden’s (Isabel Hodgins) rapist Lee Posner (Kris Mochrie).

Released on appeal, Robert headed straight home upon seeing the wedding announcement of ex-husband Aaron and half-brother, John Sugden (Oliver Farnworth) and set about trying to win his true love back.

While Robert easily clocked that John was a card-carrying weirdo, nobody could’ve predicted what was truly lurking below the surface of the seemingly good-natured medic. Possessing a pathological need to appear as a hero, he was behind the death of Nate Robinson (Jurell Carter), kidnapped Mackenzie Boyd (Lawrence Robb) and imprisoned him in an underground bunker.

He later threw himself and Aaron off a cliff to frame Robert, before escaping from the hospital when the truth came to light.

With John gone, Robron’s next challenge came in the form of Robert’s prison husband, Kev Townsend (Chris Coghill). Kev, though criminally insane in his own right, didn’t hold a candle to John, and was vanquished much more easily.

John’s re-emergence amid the Corriedale crash saw him meet his end when Victoria stabbed him with his own loaded syringe.

Seen by the increasingly more devious Joe Tate (Ned Porteous), he blackmailed Robert into framing Moira Dingle (Natalie J Robb) for the hideous crimes of Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths).