DROVE SOAP STAR TO BREAKDOWN EastEnders toxic sexism left me suicidal
»»Blackouts on set after battles over ‘ridiculous’ lines »»Stress made her put on weight and seek therapy
but an old granny’. It was demeaning to the character, to me and to women her age watching. In another, Grant says, ‘Why would I be with you when I can be with Tiffany?’ – yet his character was only five years younger than mine. It was ridiculous.
“I had about seven meetings with executives. My relationships with them became toxic and I started feeling ill. I confided in friends like Patsy Palmer and Nadia Sawalha about how I was feeling.
“I was working 7am to 7pm and had my little boy Alfie and husband Jamie. I’d go home and cry.
“There were a couple of times on set when I blacked out. I put on weight and my GP said my thyroid was acting up, probably due to stress. Then I read I was to be written out.” Five months later, in 1999, she was gone. “By the time I left I felt I was no good and my acting days were over. I got offered parts, but all like Louise had been portrayed. My marriage ended in 2000. By then I’d lost all confidence.”
In despair, the actress felt as vulnerable as she had done as a teenager following abuse as a child.
BLAMED
“I started to feel as low as I did when I tried to commit suicide at 18. I did have suicidal thoughts but never let them go beyond that.
“When I tried to take my own life as a teenager, it was because I’d felt helpless. I blamed myself for the abuse I’d gone through. In some way, what had happened at EastEnders brought back that same helpless feeling. Acting had become my saviour after my teenage years but now I felt powerless.
“I started taking medication and had CBT counselling. I was so drained. Luckily, because of my past, I knew the signs and how to hold myself together.”
Her revelations come just days after Louise Jameson, who played Rosa di Marco, told how she was booted off the show in 2000 after challenging a storyline she didn’t like.
Carol’s recovery has been gradual. After her EastEnders hell, she studied a two-year MA in scriptwriting, avoiding the front of the camera. She has gone on to write plays including All Or Nothing which toured the UK and hit the West End. Carol remarried in 2006 and is happier than ever. And last year she made a triumphant acting comeback in the smash hit theatre show The Thunder Girls, which will tour the UK again later this year, also starring Corrie’s Beverley Callard and Coleen Nolan.
Carol says: “To think they tried to write me off when I was only 43 and now at 65 I’m having the time of my life in a show audiences love.
“All the Thunder Girls cast play strong, complex women over 50 and we all feel great about ourselves.
“The TV industry should celebrate women, not denigrate and humiliate them like EastEnders did to me.”
■■For tour info see thundergirls.co.uk