MASSIVE SHOCK EastEnders star reflects on surprise soap axing: “Really disappointed”

Former EastEnders star Jill Halfpenny has reflected on her exit from the BBC soap, with the actor recalling that she was “really disappointed” upon learning that she would be written out of the series.

The actor debuted as Kate Mitchell on the soap back in 2002, with the character being introduced as an undercover police officer. She was originally ordered to keep tabs on Phil Mitchell in a honey trap operation, but ended up falling for Walford’s bad boy.

The pair subsequently wed the following year, though the marriage didn’t last long. After a bitter feud with business partner Chrissie Watts began, Kate left East London for a new life in Brighton in 2005.

Though Halfpenny has had other soap roles in the shape of Coronation Street and Waterloo Road, the actor told The Mirror that her departure from the BBC series was particularly hard to take.

“I [was] told that EastEnders weren’t going to renew my contract, and I have to say, I would’ve done another year,” said the actor. “I was really disappointed. I’m not gonna sugar coat that.”

“I didn’t feel ready and I said I would have loved to have stayed but they said: ‘No, we’re gonna let you go.’ So I rang my agent, and said ‘Yeah, that’s come to an end,’” recalled the star, who has since appeared in Girl Taken and After the Flood.

Halfpenny had previously explained exclusively to how her time on EastEnders and other soaps had prepared her for her later roles, with the actor saying the hectic schedule can be a blessing.

“Soaps work so quickly, [and] they can help you when you’re on set and particularly under pressure,” she said in 2022. “It doesn’t throw me maybe as much as it throws people who haven’t worked at that speed.”

“I think people just don’t appreciate the speed that soaps have to work at to get the content out… So once you sort of experience that, I think it does stand you in good stead,” she added.