Rita Simons set for soap return six years after EastEnders character killed off
EastEnders star Rita Simons is set to make a triumphant return to the soap world - six years after her iconic character Roxy Mitchell was killed off the BBC show.
The 46-year-old actress will be swapping the BBC for Channel 4 where she is joining the cast of long-running soap Hollyoaks.
Rita won over an army of fans as loveable character Roxy on EastEnders - a role she played from 2007 until 2017, and then returned with a voice message cameo in 2019 and a cameo as a vision earlier this year.
But now the star will be flexing her soap muscles in a different way by playing a feisty new character who is set to shake things up in the Chester set soap.
Rita Simons is making a major soap comeback (ITV)A soap source told The Sun on Sunday: “Rita’s new character will certainly ruffle feathers and is set to stir the pot.
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"Hollyoaks fans can expect plenty of fireworks.”
It has not yet been revealed if Rita’s character will slot in as a family member of one of the popular Hollyoaks family unit’s or if she will be a character from an entirely new family.
EastEnders fans were gutted in 2017 when Rita’s character - a fan favourite of the soap - was killed off in a tragic scene.
Rita and Samantha Womack's characters Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell were killed off in tragic scenes in 2017 (BBC/Steven Peskett)Her character drowned in a swimming pool - while her on-screen sister, Ronnie Mitchell, played by Samantha Womack, suffered the same fate when she dived in to save her while wearing her wedding dress that became waterlogged and dragged her under the water too.
However, this year, Rita explained that some bosses behind the scenes at EastEnders were fuming that she was being killed off.
And the actress herself admits she played the scene like Roxy was merely holding her breath - in the hope that her character could one day make an explosive return.
She said in an interview in April: “I got pulled aside a couple of days before filming the final scene by an exec, who I cannot name for legal reasons, who said to me, ‘There are a lot of people upstairs who don’t agree with this’.
“Why they couldn’t help, I don’t know. The politics there was so fraught at the time. And you have to let a producer do what they do and you have to let them find their way.
“They said, ‘If you want any chance at ever bringing Roxy back, you have to refuse to die’. So I have sat on this for six years and said nothing. It has made me feel like vomiting because I feel so guilty about it."
She added: “Now is the time to say I played that scene as if I was holding my breath. Go back and watch it online and you will see next to nothing of me at all.”
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Rita also said she refused to film scenes where her body was lying in a coffin - further increasing her hope she could one-day return to the show.
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