Huge EastEnders star slams time on soap and claims bosses ‘made promises they never kept’
A FORMER EastEnders star has slammed his time on the show and claimed bosses “made promises they didn’t keep”.
Jamie Foreman starred as Derek Branning in EastEnders from November 2011 until December 2012.
Despite being part of one of Walford’s most iconic families, Jamie, 67, has confessed his time as Derek is not “a career highlight”.
Speaking on the Lewis Nicholls Show, he said: “I’m going to be a little bit controversial here.
“I don’t see EastEnders as anywhere near the highlight of my career.
“It was a lovely job and I respect it. But for me… they’d asked me so many times before.”
Recalling the offer from EastEnders, Jamie continued: “They said, ‘it’s with the best family, it’s full on, you can do as long as you want’. I said, ‘I only want to do it for a year’.
“I went and met with them and they made me all manner of promises that they never kept, like ‘you’ll never work a Saturday’. I did every Saturday. I was the first in, last out every day.”
Jamie’s character Derek was killed off during the Christmas Day 2012 episode when he suffered a heart attack.
In his short time as a resident of Albert Square Derek cemented himself as one of the soap’s most notorious bad boys.
He had an affair with Alfie Moon’s wife Kat Slater, tormented Pat Butcher on her death bed and told Sharon Watts’ son Denny the truth about his dad Dennis Rickman.
It’s not the first time Jamie has spoken negatively about his time on the show.
In 2013 he appeared on Daybreak and said: “I hated the scenes in the Queen Vic, I’m terribly sorry to everybody!
“I’m sure a lot of the cast will say the same thing – they’re so long and laborious.
“You’ve got to stand there and wait for somebody over there to stop talking, so you’re listening to that conversation, then it cuts to somebody else. You never shoot a scene quickly in there.”