Rita Simons almost missed out on EastEnders role and quit acting
Rita Simons played Roxy Mitchell on EastEnders from 2007 until 2017.
Rita Simons' agent stopped her from almost losing out on landing her breakout EastEnders role and quitting acting.
The star wanted to end her career after she welcomed twin daughters, Jaimee and Maiya, into the world in 2006.
Rita, 48, revealed to the Daily Star Sunday newspaper: "I had said to my agent, 'I'm just going to quit. I don't want to act anymore,' because I had twins just before I got the job, and thought it was too much.
"And he called me and said, 'No, you're not quitting, but there's this job that's come in, and it's for a Mitchell.'"
Rita - who has Maiya and Jaimee with her 49-year-old ex-husband, hairdresser Theo Silveston - was full of anxiety for a month before she got the part of Roxy, the sister of Ronnie Mitchell (Samantha Womack).
Rita - who, with Samantha, made their EastEnders debut in July 2007 - continued: "So I went for the audition, and it was me, Sam Womack and a room full of Ronnies and Roxys.
"It took four weeks for them to tell us that we had the job, and it was just four weeks of absolute anxiety. But it paid off in the end."
Roxy and Ronnie died on the latter's wedding day to Jack Branning (Scott Maslen) in the 2017 New Year's Day episode of EastEnders.
Ronnie jumped into a swimming pool to save a drunk Roxy from getting into trouble, but Ronnie's dress weighed her down, and the pair met their untimely deaths by drowning together.
Almost 10 years after the pair were last seen on the BBC soap, her 78-year-old uncle, The Apprentice boss Lord Alan Sugar, still chats to his niece about EastEnders.
Rita said: "He's such an EastEnders fan, and it just kills me because all we talk about is EastEnders when I see him."
After Ronnie and Roxy's funerals aired, EastEnders fans pleaded with the soap's bosses for the sisters to return from the dead.
In April 2023, Rita returned to the soap, playing Roxy as a "figment of her daughter Amy's imagination" in an emotional scene where Amy (Ellie Dadd) imagined she was sat with her mum during a family therapy session.
But in October 2025, however, Lord Sugar suggested that Rita could return to Walford as the "cousin" of Roxy Mitchell, whom he jokingly named "Poxy Mitchell".
In a TikTok video, the business magnate told his niece: "Now look, Rita. There is no way you're ever going to convince the BBC to bring you back into EastEnders."
Rita asked: "Do you think I should be back at EastEnders?"
Lord Sugar replied: "Oh, definitely. But, you're dead. I mean, as far as the story is, you're dead.
"So you've got to come back as a cousin of who you were. So, I don't know who you were."
Rita queried: "What would my name be?"
Lord Sugar responded: "I don't know your b***** name."
Rita then asked: "What was my name in the show?"
An unsure Lord Sugar said: "Roxy?"
Rita then added: "So the cousin would be..."
Lord Sugar chimed in: "Poxy. You know, whatever. I don't care what you come back as. But the point is, is that, you've got to come back as a relative, right?
"That's it, definitely."
Rita asked her uncle: "And you think they'll buy it?"
Lord Sugar replied: "They should do."
