Cheryl Fergison has branded EastEnders 'out of touch' and has slammed BBC bosses for their decision to kill off her legendary character, Heather Trott.
The actress, 56, played the loveable character for five years from 2007 and she quickly viewers hearts as Shirley Carter's best friend and an unlucky-in-love legend.
It has now been over a decade since Cheryl's much-loved character was murdered by non-other than Ben Mitchell - and the former soap star still feels as though the writers' decision to kill her off in such a brutal way was rather harsh.
Cheryl described EastEnders as 'out of touch' for choosing to murder Heather as Ben walloped her across the head with a photo frame.
After five years of playing the George-Michael obsessed character, Heather's time on the BBC soap was up.
The actress revealed that she 'wasn't surprised' that the soap got its lowest ever ratings last Autumn - 1.7m, compared to around 7m when she left.
"They need to bring it back down to earth a bit," she told The Mirror.
"When the sensational stuff becomes like a movie, it becomes a bit like a blur.
"Arthur stealing the money, Den and Angie’s divorce papers, those were the hearts and lives of real people. The producers need to go out and talk to people. If you wanted explosions, you'd watch Fast and Furious."
The actress also hinted at the lack of body diversity in the BBC soap as she shared her desires to see more 'big people' in successful TV careers.
Cheryl is keen to see larger actors in more three-dimensional roles.
"We can identify better when someone looks like you is represented," Cheryl insisted.
"And we do have sex! People like to pretend that we just laugh around being jolly and eating, but we don't. I saw Pierce Brosnan's wife, who's bigger, and was like 'Yeah! Goooo on!'."
Following the sad passing of EastEnders veteran actress June Brown, Cheryl told The Mirror that she was gobsmacked when she had her first encounter with the legendary star.
"She'd hate people weeping," told Cheryl. "She was amazing, meticulous, professional, genuinely kind, charitable and very funny. She'd want her life to be celebrated."
The TV star said that June knew Dot so well that she could switch into character halfway through a sentence, without pause.
"It was an amazing ability," she told.
"She can be talking to you about something she read in a magazine while they were faffing with the camera, and then in a split second she'll switch into speaking her lines.
"The first time I was completely thrown. I said: 'I'm so sorry, I need 30 seconds.' She turned and said: 'Darling, you always have to be ready!'. I learned very quickly to only to ever be half engaged in conversation with her on set so I was prepared to go any second.
"She knew Dot inside out. If something wasn't written the way she thought it should be, she'd be changing it, 'No, no, darling. Dot wouldn’t have done that'."
Cheryl's new show, Hard Cell, is available to watch on Netflix now.
