Zoe Slater is an EastEnders icon. But cruel reaction to her return has left me fuming… everyone is missing key thing

The Sun

4 hours ago

WHEN Zoe Slater's mascara-smudged face appeared on my TV screen, I let out a little gasp.
Michelle Ryan 's long-awaited EastEnders return can only mean more incredible, explosive storylines - 'You ain't my muvva!' is the greatest line in soap history - so what a shame her big moment was completely overshadowed.
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I had seen all the rumours about her soap return on social media, and I even carefully studied the teaser clip producers had released just hours earlier which was apparently full of 'clues' about a former castmate's comeback.
And even though I knew it was Zoe being barked at by Stacey Slater while hungover and hiding under a blanket on Lynne's sofa, I was still elated to see her reappearance after two decades.
Vile jibes
But I was shocked - actually, disgusted - to see Michelle's return blighted with vile criticism about her appearance.
'Put a lot of timber on,' one nasty troll spat, while another bitched, 'She's spent the 20 years eating burgers.'
Another made reference to Michelle 's career in America where she starred as the lead in TV drama Bionic Woman, saying 'She let herself go a lot. I thought she went to Hollywood? Most people who go there come back thin.'
Vilified for our looks
I honestly despair. I'm so ashamed that we live in a world where it's become the norm for faceless keyboard warriors to spit venom and hate at women.
I'm sick of women being constantly vilified over our appearance. And we can never win, by the way.
We lose weight and we are too skinny or we look ill. We put on weight and we are fat or we've let ourselves go.
Wrinkles mean we are past it and haggard, yet any form of beauty treatment to turn back the years and we are full of ourselves and vain.
Zoe Slater left terrified and hiding major secret in EastEnders - as Michelle Ryan returns to Walford after 20 years
I can't help but think that it's now become so normal to live in a world of airbrushed images and filters that society has forgotten what real women actually look like.
It's almost like the toxic pockets of society completely freak out the moment they see anything that doesn't fit this unachievable mould.
Michelle is a beautiful 41 year old woman, who just for the record was once voted one of FHM's sexiest women.
It doesn't matter why she decided to come back or that her Hollywood career didn't span decades - when did that become the measure of a successful career?
But that's not important. What matters is that she is an incredible actress, and due to her much-loved and memorable impact on the soap, was given the chance to come back.
Michelle's character Zoe, Kat Slater's gobby daughter, was iconic back in the day.
Who can forget her trying to get pregnant by Dirty Den before helping his wife Chrissie Watts to bump him off?
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EastEnders' new top boss, executive producer Ben Wadey, even said Zoe was his 'wishlist of returnees.'
It doesn't matter why she decided to come back or that her Hollywood career didn't span decades - when did that become the measure of a successful career?
It's also totally irrelevant that Michelle doesn't look the same as she did in 2005, because the fact is none of us do.
And that is the key thing these keyboard warriors are missing - news flash - women aren't stuck in a time warp, they age, grow and change.
And if these faceless trolls ever have the guts to unmask themselves, they will see they haven't defied ageing either.
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