Exclusive: Emmerdale’s Natalie Ann Jamieson reveals real reason she left soap amid Amy tragic d.e.a.t.h

Emmerdale star Natalie Ann Jamieson has opened up about her exit from the ITV soap after six years as Amy Wyatt, admitting that she didn’t initially realise she was being k.i.l.l.e.d off.

In tonight’s episode of the Yorkshire-based soap, Amy passed away in hospital, after plunging into an icy lake following a limo crash. Admitted to hospital with severe hypothermia, Amy stayed conscious long enough to tell husband Matty Barton that she loved him before dying of cardiac arrest.

In an exclusive interview with The Mirror’s Notebook, Natalie shared her reasons for leaving Emmerdale and why she was ready to say goodbye to Amy.

“I had been asking for meetings about what was coming up for Amy and saying that I’d really like some challenging, new stuff,” she said. “They knew they had this coming up and they didn’t have anything planned for Amy – and that was the direction that I wanted to go in.”

She added: “It worked out that this was going to be Amy’s exit and I didn’t know it was going to be d.e.a.t.h at first. When they told me, I was like, ‘Oh!’ It’s really hard to know whether you would prefer for your character to d.i.e if you’re going, or to go in the back of a taxi.”

While Natalie knew that the most comfortable way was for Amy to leave the village, she was ready to take on the icy lake stunt. “There’s always a chance that you could potentially go back and you’ve got all your friends there and you love to work there,” she said. “However, you are just going in the back of a taxi and the show were like, ‘We want to give her something big.'”

Opening up about the stunt, which saw Amy fall through the ice while trying to escape the crashed limo, Natalie said that she spent a whole day of filming in the Emmerdale set car park. “The lake was made of wax and there was a hole that was built for the size of me,” she said. “The ice was thinner and underneath, there was freezing cold water. I had a wetsuit on and it was two o’clock in the morning. I was really scared about that bit.”

In her final scenes, viewers watched as Amy tried to tell Matty that she had seen a body when in the icy lake and that she feared it was missing Nate Robinson – however, Matty didn’t understand what she was saying. Taking to Instagram after tonight’s episode, Natalie shared a screenshot of her heartbreaking d.e.a.t.h with the words: “We were meant to go old together.”