All the fame was madness in the 90s, it gave me anxiety attacks.. but now it’s like going back home
a household name on one of Britain’s biggest soaps, it got worse – until an Eastenders producer got her into rehab.
In her 2007 autobiography, All Of Me, Patsy admitted she had been losing “whole chunks of time”.
She wrote: “By my twenties I was bingeing my life away on cocaine, ecstasy and enough vodka and
Laurent-perrier Champagne to quench a small village’s thirst.”
In the podcast, she says: “Being a performer, it is not for the fainthearted. Sustaining life as a performer for years, like my whole life since I was six, you need breaks, big breaks.
“It is a tough job and no wonder so many suffer from anxiety, depression at times due to that level of responsibility that we have to have.
“It is a big responsibility.
“I felt like that whole time in my life was massive. It was enormous for me and was I thrust into this character in a soap opera. It was huge. So, yeah, who would be able to cope with that?”
Thankfully, she has since found the perfect work-life balance and is returning to Eastenders only for a one-off episode in the spring. Bianca was last a regular character in 2014. She made a brief return for Whitney Dean’s wedding in 2019 and will now return as a one-off to mark Whitney’s exit.
Patsy will then return to Malibu, where she has lived for 10 years in a beach house with husband Richard Merkell and her children – Charley, 31, from her relationship with boxer Alfie Rothwell, Fenton, 24, Emilia, 22, and Bertie, 13. Patsy admits she pinches herself every morning, waking up overlooking the Pacific. Nowadays, she is all about meditation and wellness and even has her own brand, Good and Proper.
She is also a DJ, travelling to nearby LA each week to perform on the rooftop of the Sunset EDITION hotel.
She says: “I do what I want to do now. Living in Malibu is amazing. We live right opposite the beach.
“I do a lot of meditation and every day is an opportunity to dig deeper into yourself, which is the hardest thing for you to do.
“One thing I would tell my younger self is, ‘Keep the level of joy’.
“I am 52 in May and I have realised that life is super precious now. We thought we appreciated life 10 years ago, but now it is like, on steroids.
“I really love my life now and I don’t take anything for granted.”
The children are following their famous mum into showbiz.
Charley is an actor and had a role in Dunkirk, Fenton has dated Cindy Crawford’s model daughter Kaia
Gerber and Emilia is a model. Patsy says: “I try to leave my kids alone. You learn to let them be, really.”
Born Julie Ann Harris, Patsy admits she wears lots of different hats nowadays. But being a mum is most important. She tells comedian and radio and TV presenter Viv Groskop on the podcast: “I do have a few personas.
“I am Patsy Palmer on TV, which is my acting name, and Julie, which is who I really am. I have the character name of Bianca Jackson, which is a big part of me, and I have got the mum tag – and this person in America who nobody knows about.
“But all these personas help me to get to do all this stuff. I am so grateful.”
When she returns to the Square this time, she will have a very different perspective from the 1990s Patsy.
She says: “All my work things used to control me, but now I am very much controlled by the most important things.”