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EastEnders star Samantha Womack starts a new chapter in Spain after cancer battle
The actress says the loss of her beloved dog Lola helped her focus on recovery and led her to begin a new life in Valencia
Most of us will remember Samantha Womack as the troubled but much-loved Ronnie Mitchell from EastEnders, a role she played for a decade until 2017. But her career has stretched well beyond Albert Square. Since starting out as a pop singer representing the UK in Eurovision back in 1991, she’s gone on to star in TV dramas, films such as Kingsman, and stage productions including The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and The Girl on the Train.Now, at 53, Samantha is turning the page on a new chapter: life in sunny Valencia. The move, she says, was inspired by both heartbreak and healing. In September 2022, just a month after being diagnosed with breast cancer, Samantha’s rescue dog Lola died.
“She died on the same day as the Queen. I was devastated,” she told interviewers. “It was one of the worst days of my life. I’d just been diagnosed with breast cancer and losing Lola was probably worse for me than the diagnosis. It made everything seem real.”
Lola’s death made Samantha stop and take stock. “That was when I decided to stop working and focus on getting better,” she said. “If I hadn’t lost Lola, I wouldn’t have gone back to Valencia and taken a year off to really try to work on my body and get better. Lola changed the course of my life.”
Samantha, who adopted Lola from Goa in 2019, now has five other dogs, including a podenco called Xena, her self-described “warrior princess”.
“She came to me when I needed to be my own warrior princess,” she says.
Her battle with cancer began quietly, after a routine check-up. “I didn’t have any lumps or feel ill,” she recalled. “During the ultrasound we saw this little black shadow that wasn’t a circle. Everyone just went quiet.”
It was later confirmed to be an aggressive stage three breast cancer. She underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy and was given the all clear five months later. Looking back, she admits the disease could have been “a death sentence” if detected any later.
Today, Samantha is embracing a new pace of life in Spain, surrounded by sun, animals and space to breathe. After everything she has faced, she says she’s focusing on gratitude and on the new life that grew from love, loss and resilience.
Image: wikicommons
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