EastEnders' Natalie Cassidy has 'guilt' over growing up fast
Natalie Cassidy was aged 10 when she joined EastEnders as Sonia Jackson in 1993.
Natalie Cassidy felt guilty for living her life and growing up quickly before her mum died, and not spending as much time with her while she could.
The star thinks Evelyn - who lost her battle with bowel cancer in 2002 at the age of 64 - would have blocked her from joining EastEnders as Sonia Jackson in 1993, aged 10, if Evelyn "would've known she was going to lose” Natalie “so young”.
Speaking to 54-year-old journalist James O'Brien on the latest episode of LBC's Full Disclosure podcast, Natalie, 42, added: "I struggle with guilt, and I'm getting much better at it, but the guilt I feel because I lost mum at 19.
"There's a lot of guilt around growing up a bit too quickly and wanting to be out all the time and living my life, and losing her so quick because you come back to your mum and dad.
"My brothers say it, we got the chance to come back, but it's a struggle."
EastEnders turned Natalie's life around.
Asked what her life would have been like if it were not being cast in the BBC soap, she admitted: "It's not good. I would've been down Islington Green Canal, ending up doing God knows what.
"I think I'm a bit of a wild spirit, and I think if I hadn't have gone down the path I had, who knows what might have happened?"
Natalie said that she mixed in with the wrong crowd as a youngster.
She continued: "There were a lot of people around me that were a little bit stupid, would I have just followed on with them?
"I don't know what I would've ended up doing."
The actress made her last appearance as National Health Service (NHS) nurse Sonia on EastEnders during the April 17, 2025, episode when her alter ego left Walford for Bali with her daughters Rebecca "Bex" Fowler (Jasmine Armfield) and Julia Fowler, and her sister Bianca Jackson (Patsy Palmer).
Natalie said leaving the soap is "freeing" because the show took over her "whole life".
She explained in the November 2025 issue of Prima magazine: "It’s been freeing leaving EastEnders. I feel liberated and just happy.
"Albert Square will always hold a place in my heart, and I love it there. There could be a storyline where I come back for a week – those things are great.
"But it took up a lot of time. I used to be learning lines in the evening, and that’s gone now.
"And then I’d be up at six in the morning. You’re not a scaffolder or a heart surgeon, but it did take a long time, whereas now, my evenings are free, unless I’m recording a podcast at home.”
Natalie also decided to bid farewell to Albert Square because she was in her 40s and also wanted to pursue other projects.
She added: "I know it’s a bit of a cliche, but I think turning 40 is a milestone. I think you know who you are, you know who your friends are, and where you are in life. You don’t want any rubbish.
"And for me, having been in this business for such a long time, I just needed to be free and be open to everything else.
"EastEnders is a brilliant job, but when you’re there, you’re chained. And that’s not a bad thing, because it’s regular money. You know where you are and what you’re doing.
"But you haven’t got any time to plan anything else, so it does take over your whole life. For me, I just knew I needed to be brave, and I needed to break free from that to sit and go, 'What else is going to come?'"
