Derry Girls star Jamie-Lee O'Donnell has revealed that she completed therapy, which led her to cut off contact with her entire family and move to Barcelona.
The 39-year-old actress spoke candidly about her personal life on the Dish podcast with Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett, saying she wanted a “new start” after finishing therapy, which she described as “pretty intense and really tough”.
Therapy and a new start
“All the healing’s done,” she said, adding that she sold her house and relocated to Barcelona, where she has been living since February 2025.
“I know, it’s mental. I’ve always been hyper independent and if I wanted to do something, I'd done my research and then just did it,” O’Donnell explained. “There's a lot of good and bad with that. You sort of learn by mistakes but thankfully, it's worked out really well.”
Going no contact with family
A particularly difficult decision she made as a result of the therapy was to cut off her family, she continued. “I had to go no contact with my entire family. It's just one of those things,” she said. “The more I've talked about it and been honest about it, I'm seeing that it's, unfortunately, not the most unusual thing for adults.”
In an interview with Hot Press last year, O’Donnell said she started therapy to “unpack a lot of stuff from my childhood”. “It was sort of running after me for a while – like, I suppose, a lot of people. It was a few years, trying to figure it all out, and come to terms with everything,” she said. “I finally felt like this year was the time to put it to bed for now, and start looking forward.”
Reflecting on Irish culture
O’Donnell, who is set to star in the forthcoming BBC six-part comedy Hopley Hall, added that she would not have “ever discussed” going through therapy before actually doing it. “I don’t think it’s a traditional Irish characteristic, unfortunately,” she reflected. “There is that culture sometimes, especially up North, of just saying: ‘Get on with it.’ Yes, that’s beneficial for survival, and I understand why people have that mindset – because I did, for a long time. But it got to a point that it was quite difficult, and it was working against me.”
