BBC EastEnders’ Natalie Cassidy’s huge regret over £100,000 deal
Natalie has confirmed she is leaving EastEnders after playing Sonia for some 32 years
Natalie Cassidy, the actress behind EastEnders’ Sonia Fowler, has confirmed she is to take a step back from the soap after some 32 years in Walford. The 41-year-old actress first appeared in Albert Square way back in 1993.
As she grew up, Natalie quickly became a household name, and was later offered a fitness DVD deal, something she later regretted. The soap star revealed she was offered a substantial sum to lose weight rapidly, but ended up regaining the weight after the deal was made.
In an August 2022 episode of the Comfort Eating with Grace Dent podcast, Natalie shared her experience: “I was very overweight and they approached me and said ‘Listen, we’re going to give you £100,000, we’re going to get you really fit and you’re going to lose four stone’.”
Natalie Cassidy is set to leave EastEnders after playing Sonia Jackson for decades ( Image:
/Jack Barnes/Kieron McCarron)
She continued, “I was like happy days, let’s go for it. I just thought, that’s a lot of money; but it wasn’t the right thing to do. It wasn’t – you are losing a lot of weight in a three or four-month period, twelve or sixteen weeks, low calories and training every day.”
She let slip that after her fitness DVD released, she indulged herself massively, remarking with humour, “I got there, and as soon as that DVD came out, I ate for England. I put all the weight back on in eight weeks”, as previously reported.
She jokingly said that she could look like Kate Moss, if not for her love of mayonnaise. The star also shared her experiences of being “fat-shamed” during her stint on Strictly Come Dancing in 2009, recalling feeling “ridiculed” and noting she was “about four stone bigger than I am now”.
On the Ry-union podcast hosted by Rylan, she opened up about dancing with Vincenzo Simone, adding: “And I remember one week, it was like, ‘Oh we’re going to do this dance, but you’re going to pick up Vincent’. And I think about it now and I think, ‘Oh, that was out of order. It was a bit out of order to me.’ You couldn’t do that now.”
By 2019, Natalie had a newfound sense of body positivity following a three-stone weight loss, citing preparations for the London Marathon as a catalyst. On the RunPod podcast, she shared her new outlook: “I have learnt how to eat and how to be comfortable with who I am… You get wiser as you get older and I just feel much more confident and comfortable.”
Natalie has won over a new legion of fans in recent years, due to her honest social media posts and candid admissions, as well as her Life with Nat podcast. Back in 2021, she joked with her many Instagram followers that she was “at breaking point”, while holding a glass of wine.
At the time, amid high pollen counts in the UK, she captioned the video: “I love summer. Not allergic to anything at all.” In the clip she shared she explained: “I’m going to try and go outside and enjoy the paddling pool with my children, but I’m at breaking point.”
Holding her glass of wine to the camera, she added: “And apparently this doesn’t help hay fever either but oh well.”
