EastEnders star Annette Badland has revealed that her stint on the show led to such horrific death threats that she was placed under “house arrest” for six weeks.
Badland, 75, joined the BBC’s long-running soap in 2014 as Babe Smith, an antagonist involved in blackmail, baby farming and encouraging Abi Branning to fake a pregnancy. She left in 2017.
Death threats and security alert
Appearing on Coronation Street star Sally Lindsay’s podcast, Badland opened up about the extreme public reactions to her character. Lindsay asked: “People think your [character is] real, don’t they? I don’t think you had a really good experience with that because Babe was such a villainous character.”
Badland said the writers “racked up my villainy” once her departure was announced. “But I had death threats,” she said. “The call from the BBC security saying, ‘We’re getting death threats’, and they’d worked for the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, so they said, ‘There are red alert code words in this, so we have to take it seriously.’”
House arrest and investigation
When Lindsay asked what happened next, Badland explained: “[They said,] ‘Don’t go out, don’t tell people where you’re going. No social media.’” The threats were eventually traced to a computer outside Liverpool, but because it was in a school and a public computer, police could not proceed further. The investigation took about a month to six weeks.
“So you were under house arrest for six weeks?” Lindsay asked. Badland replied: “They just said, ‘Do not go out. Just don’t go out, and tell people where you’re going if you do go out.’”
Exit from the soap
Badland’s exit was announced in 2016 and was met with relief from fans, with one poll showing they would not miss the “awful” character. Her final episode saw her calling Linda Carter a “stuck-up cow” before being thrown out of the pub by Mick Carter.
