Soap actress Patsy Kensit confirmed to join EastEnders

Patsy Kensit will join EastEnders, a representative for the soap has confirmed to the PA news agency.

The 54-year-old actress has been in soaps Emmerdale and Holby City but has not made an appearance in Albert Square.

PA understands she will join the cast “for a brief stint” on the long-running soap.

The Sun newspaper reported that she will be playing a role in “one of their biggest current storylines” and is due to enter the soap at Christmas.

It has been reported previously that Kensit said she would “love” to do EastEnders and play a “strong matriarch” like Peggy Mitchell, who was played by the late Dame Barbara Windsor for 22 years.

Kensit told the Radio Times in 2019: “My father was involved in organised crime in the East End, so I grew up around villains and that kind of backdrop.

“And I can pull a pint and say, ‘You’re barred’.”

In June, she was one of the hundreds of celebrities chosen to travel in decorated, open top, double-decker buses for the decade-by-decade celebrations at the grand finale of the Platinum Jubilee festivities.

For the 1990s, Kensit was set to ride with actor Idris Elba, singer Courtney Love, supermodel Erin O’Connor and All Saints singers Natalie and Nicole Appleton atop one of the vehicles.

Kensit also said in March she was “so sad” when the medical drama Holby City finished after 23 years on screen with an emotional final episode which celebrated the spirit of the NHS.

She had played nurse Faye Morton and told her Twitter followers: “I had an amazing four and a half years on the show and I loved it.”

Kensit, who sang with the band Eighth Wonder in the 1980s, also appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2015.

She has a son, James, with Simple Minds musician Jim Kerr and another, Lennon, with former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher.