Former EastEnders star Annette Badland has revealed she had to call police after receiving death threats from some fans over her evil character.
Annette famously played the villainous Aunt Babe Smith – an extended member of the Carter clan – on the BBC soap between 2014 and 2017.
During her stint in Walford, Babe’s storylines involved her being exposed as a baby farmer, encouraging Abi Branning (Lorna Fitzgerald) to lie about being pregnant, and attempting to steal from the Queen Vic after leaving sister Sylvie Carter (Linda Marlowe) to die.
However, the dark plots led to Annette receiving threatening messages that sparked security to be upped at EastEnders’ studios in Elstree.
Speaking to the Daily Star, she said: ‘It’s always good to place villains, it’s intriguing though it has its consequences in a soap because I did get death threats at the end.
‘It’s very disturbing that people can’t divide between your character and yourself, they don’t know you’re acting. It subsided after about a month, but the security at the Beeb got involved, the police, they were saying, “Don’t tell anyone where you’re going, don’t go out too much’, don’t do this, don’t do that.”’
Annette added: ‘It was a bit scary to begin with, they could trace some of it but it was [on] public computers, so they couldn’t get anywhere specific, but it subsided.’
Since leaving EastEnders, Annette has starred in several other shows, including Midsomer Murders, Big Boys, Plebs and Ted Lasso.
Most recently, she popped up in the third series of Netflix’s LGBTQ+ coming-of-age series Heartstopper, before a cameo appearance as a pawn shop worker in the second series of ITV’s DI Ray.
However, Annette has not ruled out reprising her role as Aunt Babe, who was last seen cursing The Vic after being disowned by her family.
‘I’d go for a storyline or something, I don’t know [if] I’d commit for an indefinite period, but you know, you never know. It depends what they come up with,’ she said.
