{"id":644256,"date":"2026-06-17T22:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T22:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/644256\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T22:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T22:43:10","slug":"eastenders-maisie-smith-talks-potential-return-for-tiffany-butcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/644256\/","title":{"rendered":"EastEnders’ Maisie Smith talks potential return for Tiffany Butcher"},"content":{"rendered":"

EastEnders legend Maisie Smith has addressed the possibility of a return to her role as Tiffany Butcher in the BBC soap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The actress<\/a>, who took on the role in 2008 and continued to appear on-and-off until 2022, was involved in some big storylines over the years, including her marriage to Keegan Baker, an on-going feud with Dotty Cotton, and a drug smuggling plot.<\/p>\n

Her exit storyline in 2022 saw her character leave the Square to live with her brother Liam in Germany.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Radio Times<\/a> podcast In the Interval<\/a>, Smith said of the reasons behind her exit: “I ultimately decided to leave EastEnders because as much as I loved playing Tiffany and I loved the family that was there, I was itching to get on the stage.”<\/p>\n

Since leaving the show, Smith has had numerous theatre roles, including starring as Marge in the stage adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley and as Beth in Jeff Wayne’s musical version of The War of the Worlds. She also took on the lead role in Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom the Musical.<\/p>\n

\"Maisie<\/p>\n

Maisie Smith as Tiffany Butcher in EastEnders.\u00a0BBC<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, addressing a potential return to EastEnders, she said: “I can’t think I’d say yes right now because of what I’ve got coming up.”<\/p>\n

She added: “I’m really enjoying the idea of playing different characters. But thing is with EastEnders, it is gonna be there forever and I’ve got such a big family there. On screen and off screen.”<\/p>\n

Want to see this content?<\/p>\n

This page contains content provided by Google reCAPTCHA. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as Google reCAPTCHA may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, choose ‘Accept and continue’ to allow Google reCAPTCHA and its required purposes.<\/p>\n

Accept and continue<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the interview, she spoke about Tiffany’s iconic phrase \u2018NFI\u2019, which stands for \u2018not flipping invited’, revealing: “It’s so bizarre. It’s probably one of the most common things that people say to me, like when I have interactions in the street on a night out.”<\/p>\n

She added: “I don’t even know when it kind of became a thing really, just overnight. Suddenly that’s the girl that says ‘you are NFI’.”<\/p>\n

Listen to In the Interval now<\/a><\/p>\n

Visit our dedicated EastEnders<\/a> page for all the latest news, interviews and spoilers.<\/p>\n

Add EastEnders to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app<\/a> \u2013 download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more.<\/p>\n

Check out more of our Soaps<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> and Streaming Guide <\/a>to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EastEnders legend Maisie Smith has addressed the possibility of a return to her role as Tiffany Butcher in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-644256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}