EastEnders' Samantha Womack's heartbreaking change after breast cancer battle
Former EastEnders actress Samantha Womack is living her best life in Spain with her Emmerdale partner, and exclusively reveals her incredible transformation after cancer
Chatting from her home in Spain's Valencia mountains, with only her rescue dogs for company, former EastEnders actress Samantha Womack couldn't sound happier. The 52-year-old underwent gruelling treatment for breast cancer after being diagnosed in August 2022, but says she now believes the experience has changed her outlook on life for the better.
'I feel so much more enlightened,' says the Brighton-born star. 'I know myself better, I feel humbler, I feel calmer.' The biggest day-to-day change to Samantha's life is that she works far less – although for an actress who's worked pretty much non-stop since rising to fame representing the UK at Eurovision in 1991 and then launching her acting career in the mid-1990s in Pie In The Sky and Game On, saying no doesn't come easily.
'After my year-and-a-half of treatment, I started turning down a lot of stuff – and I didn't have the bank balance to match that confidence, trust me,' admits the actress, who announced she was cancer-free in December 2022. 'It was me saying the word 'no' and my bank account creaking. But there was empowerment in that because I thought, 'OK, I need to go through this, spend time with myself and figure out stuff that I've never figured out – maybe stuff I've buried under a rug.''
Another of Samantha's post-cancer convictions is the need for women's health – particularly breast health – to be more of a priority. She received her diagnosis after a private check-up, driven by a gut feeling that she needed to be seen.
'I felt perfectly fine. There was no discolouration of skin, dimpling, irritation,' she recalls. 'I knew the NHS calls people in at 50, but I just had this thought of, 'I need to go and get checked before then.' I was just on the cusp of catching it too late and the speed with which I had to process information was unbearable. I sometimes think, 'What if I hadn't gone to that appointment?''
Samantha learned she had a fast-spreading, Grade 3 invasive duct carcinoma and her treatment – a lumpectomy and lymph node removal, followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy – couldn't wait.
As the stepdaughter of a GP, she threw herself into researching breast health. One of the most shocking things she discovered was the number of women who don't receive accurate mammogram results because of their breast density level. The denser the breast, meaning there is more fibroglandular tissue, the greater the risk of cancer and the harder it is for mammograms to detect tumours.
The star, who is mum to Benjamin, 24, and Lili-Rose, 20, her children with her ex-husband Mark Womack, concluded that women mustn't put their health at the bottom of their 'to do' list. 'We all live in busy worlds and tend to put these little niggles to one side,' she says. 'I'm an avid lover of the NHS, but if something is worrying you and you have the money to go and get yourself checked, why would you not? I did and it changed my life. Now, I want to empower women to take control of their bodies.'
Samantha recognises her privilege, but admits her finances today are very different from the days when she played Ronnie Mitchell in EastEnders from 2007-2017. 'Soaps pay very, very well, but the reality of being self-employed means that, yes, you get paid for the jobs you do, but for the six months of the year you don't work, you don't get paid,' she says. 'I've never been a wealthy person. I've gone from job to job, always thinking, 'Better say yes because no one's going to want me if I don't.' I had very low self-esteem. Going back to work after my treatment felt very hard. I couldn't quite step back into that neurotic, zany energy as easily. I was physically capable, but I wasn't emotionally capable. I was picking things that felt gentle to me.'
One of those gentle jobs was a guest role in cosy crime series The Marlow Murder Club, which, she says, involved a 'lovely bunch of women' and 'felt like a safe space'.
'Now it's about things I feel I can emotionally connect to, without having to lose myself too much,' she says. 'I'm not ready to go into a gold lamé dress and boogie about on stage.'
Another big change for Samantha is how much time she spends alone, as her partner, actor Oliver Farnworth, 42, splits his time between Spain and the UK, where he plays John Sugden in Emmerdale.
The set-up works well, she explains. 'He comes back for two or three days at a time, but is filming a lot at the moment. That's been quite good for me, having some space on my own. It's been rare in my life that I've been confident enough to do that, so it's been helpful.'
Last year, the actress hinted she and Oliver were considering becoming parents together. 'We've talked about adopting, because after the cancer treatment I wouldn't be able to conceive naturally and because of my age,' she says. 'But I think I'm learning to put things in perspective and hopefully, in the next 10 years, one of my kids will produce a sproglet and I can go from maternal to gra-ternal!'
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