EastEnders' Lacey Turner claims Wendy Richard's ghost slapped her bum during visit to set to send her for cigarette break
Wendy Richard, who played Pauline Fowler in EastEnders, died from breast cancer in February 2009 at the age of 65.
EastEnders' Lacey Turner believes Wendy Richard's ghost slapped her on the bum to send her for a cigarette break while working on the BBC soap.
Shortly after the Pauline Fowler icon died from breast cancer in February 2009 at the age of 65, Stacey Slater star Lacey felt a sudden "whack" on the backside while debating whether to go for a puff, despite no one being nearby.
And the Strictly Come Dancing 2026 contestant is convinced it was Wendy's way of telling her to have one like she used to.
Lacey, 38, told the new issue of Heat magazine: "Back in the day, it was always me, Wendy Richard and Laila [Morse], who'd go for a cigarette together.
"One day, after Wendy had passed away, I was standing by the back door debating whether to have a cigarette break when suddenly I felt a great big whack on my bum.
"I turned and laughed, thinking it was a runner, but there wasn't a soul there. It was only Barbara [Windsor] in that day, but she was down the other end.
"I was standing in the studio where the Fowlers would film, and I'm convinced it was Wendy telling me to go for a cigarette like she used to."
The soap star added that Laila, 81, still thinks it has "got to have been Wendy".
Lacey continued: "I'll never forget it."
In December 2021, Laila declared that Wendy saved her life.
The Mo Harris legend was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, and she will forever be grateful to Wendy for urging her to get a lump checked out.
Laila told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "I found this lump, and I thought, 'Ah, it can’t be much.'
"So I went into work, and I told Wendy Richard, and she said, 'Go to the doctor, I don’t like the sound of that. I’m going on holiday, so when I come back the first thing I’m gonna do is ring you up and find out if you went.'
"Anyway, I didn’t go. When she came back, she rang me and said, 'Have you been to the doctor’s?' and I went, 'Erm, yeah, he didn’t say much.'
"That’s all I said, and I thought, 'I ought to go,' so I did. He wrote a note, and within two weeks I’d had the test done, a mammogram, and I had breast cancer.
"Then my sister got it, and then my friend got it - and then Wendy died from the second lot of cancer she had.
"And I think if it hadn’t been for her, I don’t think I would be here today, really."
