Amanda Holden has revealed that she was so moved by the iconic ‘You ain’t my mother’ scene in EastEnders, featuring Jessie Wallace and Michelle Ryan, that she penned a letter to the actresses.
The memorable storyline unfolded in 2001, when Kat Slater (played by Jessie) told Zoe Slater (Michelle), that she was actually her mother, not her sister.
As part of the famous exchange, Zoe yelled: “You can’t tell me what to do, you ain’t my mother,” to which Kat screamed back: “Yes, I am!”.
Speaking on Heart Radio on Wednesday, Amanda opened up about the unusual way she contacted the stars to compliment their efforts.
She spilled: “Do you know what, I loved that episode so much that I wrote to both of the actors and said how brilliant they were.”
While being teased for her unconventional method of reaching out by her guest Rob Beckett, she added: “I just wrote it directly to them, I actually sent it to their various agents and wrote to them.”
On meeting the actresses later, she recalled of their reaction: “And then when I physically met them I was like, ‘I sent you a letter’ and they were like, ‘Yeah we know’.”
Jessie, who later worked with Amanda on the drama Wild At Heart, recently revealed that fans still quote the famous line to her, after all these years.
While featuring on Lacey Turner’s podcast We Started Here, she went on to express enthusiasm about a potential reunion with Zoe in Walford.
She said: “I think it’d be great, I think it would be lovely. Can we make that happen? Wouldn’t it be great?”.
Michelle left EastEnders back in 2005, after a five-year stint and has since appeared in various films and series, while Jessie’s journey with the soap has spanned more than two decades with breaks in between, to pursue other projects.
Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden airs weekdays from 6.30am.