The actress is leaving her role as Mandy Richardson in the soap amid a dispute with bosses about her Only Fans account.
The 40-year-old star has been sharing suggestive snaps with her fans on the adult site as she wants to “take back control” of her public image.
“The older I get the more cathartic it is to take back control, to put healthy boundaries in place and to know my worth and my value. I feel sexy and strong and confident when I shoot images like this, I hope I give other women the confidence to own it,” she noted of her decision to join OF
Her sideline, however, has been viewed negatively by Hollyoaks bosses who have said today (3 November) they have been unable to ‘reach a resolution with Sarah’, so she will be leaving her role as Mandy Richardson in the saga.
“Hollyoaks is a youth-facing drama with many young viewers, who follow our cast very closely, both in the soap and outside of it. We take our responsibility to our young audience very seriously and therefore the show does not allow any Hollyoaks cast members to be active on certain 18+ websites.
“We had hoped we could reach a resolution with Sarah that would allow her to remain in her role as Mandy, but we respect her choice to continue to produce content on OnlyFans.
“In the past four years since her return to the show, her legacy character has been an integral part of some our most important storylines and we will be very sad to see her go,” a statement from the soap read.
One of Hollyoaks’ longest-running characters, Mandy appeared for the first time in 1996. She has been at the centre of a number of hard-hitting storylines over the years including coming to terms with childhood sexual abuse; her brother, Lewis taking his own life; and the loss of her daughter Grace to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
She is currently at odds with her daughter Ella over her efforts to keep her out of prison.
Sarah Jayne originally played the role of Mandy between 1996-2006, before making a number of returns to the soap – the latest of which was in 2017.
“It is rather ironic that a programme that was infamous for its scantly clad cast, who embraced it with equally as saucy ‘Babes and Hunks’ calendars should now be all prudish. How times have changed!” – TV Critic Vivian Summers
In the sixties, daily soap opera Crossroads hired former soft porn actor John Hamill in the role of Dave Cartwright. He remained, on and off, with the programme until 1974. And Chris Chittell best-known as Emmerdale regular since 1986 Eric Pollard featured in the 1975 ‘British sex film’ Erotic Inferno.
