Vanessa Feltz has become the subject of yet another on-air prank from an EastEnders-obsessed trickster, as her Channel 5 show continues to be targeted by fake callers pretending to be characters from the soap and celebrities.
The presenter, 64, was discussing the future of the royal family on her talk show Vanessa on Tuesday (21 April) when, in the latest attempt from viewers to pull the wool over Feltz’s eyes, she received a call from a woman with a Scottish accent.
“Let’s go to Sandra in Aberdeenshire,” Feltz said as she introduced the call, with viewers instantly recognising that the caller was pretending to be EastEnders’ Sandra Goodwin.
Played by Scottish actor Dawn Steele, Sandra is the adoptive mother of Zoe’s son Josh on the soap, with the character appearing on the soap for the first time in March.
“Hi Vanessa,” the caller replied, saying that it was an honour to her on what would have been the late Queen Elizabeth II’s 100th birthday.
“Sandra” said that she was a “massive royalist”, adding: “Me and my son made many a visit to Buckingham Palace, we were always down there. I think she was the heart of the country.”
However, the caller then said that she didn’t think the monarchy would survive another 100 years. “A lot of people I’ve spoken to don’t particularly believe in them anymore,” she said. “I went for dinner with my son’s birth family, and the mother, she was just sitting there, saying, ‘I need to find my son, Mini Mo. Someone is out to get me.’”
On EastEnders, Mini Mo is the name of the cat found by Zoe Slater (Michelle Ryan) who later goes missing.
Looking confused, Feltz then ended the call, saying: “I think we’ll say goodbye to this call, we seem to have veered off into a strange territory there.”
But the moment had already been clipped and shared on X, where one commenter wrote: “Obsessed with Sandra from EastEnders ringing Vanessa to sl** off Zoe Slater… still a lot of bad blood it seems.”
And it’s not the first time viewers has been bombarded with calls from viewers pretending to be EastEnders characters, or other celebrities.
In March, a caller rang in claiming to be “Bea from London”, before sharing a story based on the experiences of Bea Pollard, played by Ronni Ancona.
Speaking about school reunions, “Bea” told Feltz: “One thing I noticed was that people from school were exactly the same, one group, I used to call them the Pink Ladies, they were popular, I noticed they still acted the same now.
“One of them I did get chatting to, let’s call her Linda, she invited me to stay with her a bit because she felt bad. We kind of connected. Everybody else I didn’t really speak to again and they were very similar.”
In another segment that same month, a caller pretended to be the late Kim Woodburn on a phone-in. “I don’t like the two-faced-ness,” the impersonator said, referencing one of the TV personality’s typical catchphrases.
It’s not the first time that Channel 5 has been plagued by prank callers. In 2018, one caller snuck onto The Wright Stuff twice to call the same woman “a b****” live on air, forcing presenter Matthew Wright to apologise.
“I have to apologise once again. What we have with Gary, it's not his real name, he's a regular abuser of this phone-in,” he told viewers. “I can only apologise once again for the language used and any offence caused. We're trying our best to make sure this man never gets back on the line. He has cheated us again I'm afraid.”
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