EastEnders' Ronni Ancona reveals shock theft ordeal
EastEnders actress Ronni Ancona was devastated after someone snatched her phone outside a film premiere in London in March 2025.
EastEnders star Ronni Ancona had her phone snatched after she left the London premiere of Twiggy.
The 57-year-old actress - who plays Bea Pollard in the BBC soap - was left in despair after an individual swiped the device out of her hand as she left the glitzy launch of 60-year-old Sadie Frost's documentary about the iconic 76-year-old model in Leicester Square and headed to the Soho afterparty in March 2025.
Ronni recalled the theft nightmare to the Daily Mail newspaper's Eden Confidential column: "I was taking some investors and people involved in the film from the Vue Cinema to the afterparty in Soho.
"The theft was by someone on foot, someone very deft of hand - I was absolutely devastated."
The Big Impression co-creator panicked after the ordeal as she had many big-name phone contacts, but thankfully, "their names are under code" and Ronni "got a young person to help me wipe the data".
And her phone travelled out of the UK.
Ronni said: "I tracked my phone, it went everywhere and ended up in the Middle East."
In September 2025, Nina Wadia - who played Zainab Masood in EastEnders from 2007 until 2013 - recalled a double mugging ordeal.
Appearing on BBC Radio London, Nina, 57, recalled: "I'm in Central London, in Oxford Street.
"I felt a punch in my back. She knifed my rucksack open, and my friend starts screaming because she'd just missed my spine.
"I was angry because I'd just lost my mum, and my favourite photo of my mother was in that wallet.
"So there I am, bleeding in the back, putting my hands in every single bin up and down Oxford Street looking for the photo of my mother."
The photo was "never found", but Nina was surprised by how witnesses to the incident came together to help her find it.
She said: "[I] never did [find the photo].
"But it doesn't matter because what happened along that way doing that was the amount of people that saw that happen in the store, the amount of people that said, 'We'll go through the bins,' and there were people walking up and down, didn't even know me from Adam.
"They went looking up and down, and said, 'We'll meet you back here in an hour.
"Now that is why I love London."
And Nina was also once accosted by a "very tall" man whilst getting her rent out of an ATM machine in a high street.
She recalled on the radio station: "I got mugged twice, and this was when ATM machines had just been put into high streets.
"I was getting my rent out, which I think, believe it or not, was £60 for the week.
"And I just remember a very tall presence behind me, and this voice saying, 'You want to give me that, don't you?'
"And then he pressed really hard into my back, and said, 'You want to give me that?!' His voice changed.
"At that point, my hand went straight up. 'Have it, I don't want anything.'
"He took it, and as he walked, he went, 'Thanks mate.'"
