EastEnders' Lorraine Stanley compares show exit to 'being dumped by your boyfriend'
EastEnders bosses wrote Lorraine Stanley's alter ego Karen Taylor out of the BBC soap in 2023 after six years, which devastated the actress.
EastEnders alum Lorraine Stanley has compared her exit from the BBC soap to "being dumped by your boyfriend".
The 49-year-old actress arrived in Walford as Karen Taylor in 2017, and fans immediately fell in love with the loud-and-fiercely loyal mum of six children - Chantelle Atkins (Jessica Plummer), Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters), Keegan Butcher-Baker (Zack Morris), Bernadette Taylor (Clair Norris), Chatham Taylor (Alfie Jacobs), and Riley Taylor (Tom Jacobs).
But in 2023, bosses wrote Karen out of the show as part of a fake-kidnap storyline that involved Keanu, his girlfriend Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean), and their son, Albie, and Karen left Albert Square with her remaining family and £50,000 cash stolen from Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden).
However, the Taylor matriarch briefly returned in early 2024 for scenes relating to the death of Keanu - who was murdered by Linda Carter (Kellie Bright), and buried in the Bridge Street Cafe by Linda, Sharon, Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner), Denise Fox (Diane Parish), Suki Panesar (Balvinder Sopal) and Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth).
And Lorraine knew the Taylors would be axed from EastEnders as more of her on-screen family members left the show.
Appearing on the latest episode of the Secure the Insecure podcast, she admitted: "It was like a breakup. It was like a relationship. It was like being dumped by your boyfriend.
"Looking back now, I suppose I was really gutted. It was really sad. And you sort of saw it ebbing away, actually, because Danny was killed and Chantel was killed, and then Zach left, Keegan.
"It felt like it was sort of breaking away. But, yeah, to be told, 'We're not renewing your contract,' it's never nice. Like I say, the only way I can explain it is it's like being split up with your boyfriend."
Lorraine could not watch EastEnders after she left because of the pain of not being on the programme anymore.
The star added: "It's like watching your boyfriend with a new girlfriend. It's them kind of feelings. That's the only way I can relate it to."
Lorraine understands that she and her EastEnders co-stars "might not be asked back" after their year's contract expires.
But the entertainer said that contract terminations still come as a shock.
Lorraine admitted she temporarily "fell out of love with the business" after her exit from EastEnders.
Asked how she navigated life after the BBC soap, Lorraine explained: "I still had another 10 months on my contract or something like that. So I was dipping in and out for the last year of the contract.
"So I didn't feel like, 'What am I doing now?' because I didn't have that time. And then I think it was all self-tapes for me after I left, then I refused to do them.
"So, for me, I kind of shut down with the business for about a year after. I didn't want to work. I didn't want to do the self-tapes. If a job came along, great, I'll take it. But I hated these self-tapes. They were soul-destroying.
"So I kind of fell out of love with the business. And looking back, I don't want to say I was depressed about it - I wasn't because I've got a daughter, and you just crack on with life.
"But it did affect me. And I think I fell out of love with the business. And I said to my agent, 'I'm not doing self-tapes anymore. And if you want to let me go, I'm happy with that because I'd rather not work than do another self-tape.'
"So I was a bit disheartened by the whole thing; with the business, the way I left EastEnders. But I've been through enough in my life that that is not that bad."
