EastEnders star Natalie Cassidy has spoken about the heartbreak of losing her mother to bowel cancer when she was just 19. The actress, best known for playing Sonia Fowler on the BBC soap, reflected on her grief during an appearance on Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh.
Cassidy, who left EastEnders last year, said: “I lost my mum at 19. She was 63, she was young.” She explained that her parents had her later in life, at 44 and 46, and that her brothers were 15 and 18 when she was born. “Family is so important to me,” she added.
The actress also spoke about coping with the loss, noting that she gained sisters-in-law and nieces who became like sisters. “I was an aunty at 3, so it all worked out in the end,” she said.
In a previous interview on her podcast Life with Nat, Cassidy admitted she had carried guilt for years after her mother’s death. “When you're a late teenager you're not really thinking about your mum unfortunately. I lost her quite suddenly and I've carried a lot of guilt really about the fact that I wasn't there,” she said. She added that her brothers helped her forgive herself, but “the days for me don't get any easier – you just learn to live with it.”
Cassidy’s father died in May 2021 at the age of 84. Speaking on Sunday Brunch in 2025, she revealed that writing her autobiography Happy Days helped her process the grief of losing both parents. “I lost my mum at 19 and I didn't really deal with that grief and then I lost my beautiful dad four years ago… writing it all down, I was like 'oh my goodness', I didn't deal with my mum at all until that happened and it pieced it all together for me,” she said.
