EastEnders star Samantha Womack reveals huge career change – as on-screen sister Rita Simons returns to show
SAMANTHA Womack has revealed a huge career change as on-screen sister Rita Simons returns to EastEnders as Roxy Mitchell.
EastEnders fans were left outraged in 2017 when Roxy and 50-year-old Samantha's character Ronnie were killed off.
While viewers will get a treat in the form of a brief return by Rita, 46, in Thursday night's episode, it seems Sam is going back to her roots.
She first shot to fame when she represented the Eurovision Song Contest in 1991, with her debut single A Message To Your Heart.
And now Sam's been announced as part of the line-up for Euro Club 2023, a celebration of Eurovision which features live music every night from May 6 until May 10.
Earlier this year it was revealed Sam was quitting the UK and heading for a life in the Valencia mountains in Spain with boyfriend Oliver Farnworth.
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Sam's life decision came after she told in August how she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
She later gave a health update during an appearance on This Morning.
Sam said: “I’m really good. I was diagnosed three, four months ago with breast cancer.”
The star explained that she didn’t have a lump and just randomly tested.
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“It was really incredible because I didn’t find a lump, I didn’t feel unwell.
“There had been a lot of illness around our friends and family and I just thought I’d get a random check and I had an ultrasound, and it showed a little shadow - at that point it could be anything, a cyst… then I had further investigations and then that diagnosis.
“I was lucky, it was less than two centimetres. I had a lumpectomy, which is just a piece of tissue removed and five lymph nodes.
“The mad thing about cancer, when you have it, you understand there are so many different roads, different diagnoses, it is a terrifying world. It’s terrifying at the beginning but if there was ever a time to have it, there are so many new treatments now that are changing the face of cancer, it’s amazing.”