{"id":732101,"date":"2026-08-09T03:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T03:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/732101\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T03:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T03:12:23","slug":"eastenders-kellie-bright-to-leave-after-13-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/732101\/","title":{"rendered":"EastEnders’ Kellie Bright to leave after 13 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

EastEnders star Kellie Bright is to leave the soap after playing one of its key characters, Linda Carter, for 13 years.<\/p>\n

She arrived in Albert Square with on-screen husband Mick, portrayed by Danny Dyer, when they became the new owners of the Queen Vic pub.<\/p>\n

Carter’s matriarch character has been central to major storylines including plots about murder, sexual assault and alcoholism.<\/p>\n

Bright said she made the “tough decision” to leave more than a year ago but “happily” agreed to stay on to be part of an “exciting storyline”.<\/p>\n

The BBC has promised “unmissable drama” before her on-screen exit, which is said to be a “while away” yet.<\/p>\n

Executive producer Ben Wadey described the actor as being “the beating heart of EastEnders” and said she had become “a classic EastEnders icon”.<\/p>\n

Viewers have seen the much-loved character at the heart of many emotional storylines including in 2014 when she was raped by her brother-in-law Dean Wicks. <\/p>\n

More than 7m people watched the episode which prompted dozens of complaints<\/a>. The sexual assualt led to long-running story arc about family conflict and trauma. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EastEnders star Kellie Bright is to leave the soap after playing one of its key characters, Linda Carter,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-732101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732101","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=732101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}