Emmerdale actress Louise Jameson has spoken about how she was frustrated with the way her EastEnders exit was handled.
The actress currently plays Mary Goskirk on the ITV soap, but before that she was Rosa di Marco on EastEnders for two years around the turn of the millennium.
“I was annoyed about the way it was announced,” she told Inside Soap magazine. “I was only told the night before it appeared in the papers. I thought they could have run it by me first so I could tell my family. It wasn’t respectful.”
A few years ago, Jameson claimed that at the time EastEnders bosses were planning on “making Rosa racist”, something she objected to, and she wondered if that was a contributory factor to her exit.
“When you’re in a soap, people identify you so strongly with the character you’re playing, so I didn’t want to appear racist,” she insisted, with the BBC declining to comment on the matter.
The whole di Marco family were famous for being introduced and then quickly written out and forgotten about, though Beppe and his son Joe stayed for a little bit longer than Rosa.
Jameson’s time on Emmerdale has seen her character Mary explore her sexuality later in life, and enter into a relationship with Faye, who turned out to be a con artist who leaked some intimate photos in revenge for being caught out.
Despite the tough time she’s had, Jameson believes Mary loves her life in the village and feels supported there.
“She doesn’t belong anywhere else. Her husband has died, her best friend has died. She’s more or less repaired the relationship with her daughter [Rhona]. She loves Marlon and the two grandchildren – where else should she be?”
Emmerdale airs on weeknights at 7.30pm on ITV1, and streams on ITVX.
