Recent Hollyoaks departee Sarah Jayne Dunn has admitted that she wasn’t “massively happy” while working on the Channel 4 soap.
The actress was dropped from the show last year after sharing a series of suggestive snaps on OnlyFans in a bid to take back control of her public image.
Speaking on the Drama School Dropout podcast, Sarah noted that other cast members have similar images on Instagram.
“I wasn’t massively happy there anyway and I think I would have stayed forever so maybe I needed a push,” she said of her exit from the soap.
“Not how I would have wanted it to happen, it’s not ideal. You know, you never want your name associated with being fired, but the support I’ve had and the positivity around it and the fact that I stood my ground and I feel I definitely made the right choice for me and for my family outweighs all of that.”
The 40-year-old went on to say that she “didn’t particularly like” what was being done with her character towards the end of her time on the show.
“I was really a little bit lost with her and struggling to understand why she had done what she’d done. It was so out of character and there wasn’t a big enough reason for me to go, ‘Oh yeah. I get it’. She did all this stuff to protect her daughter, and then went off to America!”
Continuing to be critical of the writing, Sarah revealed that attempts to flag up plotholes such as her character remarrying before a divorce went ignored by show bosses.
She also agreed with the host’s claims that the show prioritises looks over talent in casting, before describing AJ and Curtis Pritchard’s much-panned stint in the saga as “detrimental”.
“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,” Hollyoaks said of its decision to terminate Sarah’s contract in November 2021.
“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.”
One of Hollyoaks’ longest-running characters, Mandy appeared for the first time in 1996 and has been at the centre of a number of hard-hitting storylines since.
