Former EastEnders star Annette Badland has revealed that she received death threats over her villainous role as Aunt

Babe.

The actor played Mick Carter’s wicked aunt from 2014 to 2017, when she was eventually exiled by the Carters in a dramatic

exit after the family said enough was enough.

Reflecting on her time on the BBC soap during a new interview with Reach PLC (via Express), Badland shared that the police had to get involved after she received “disturbing” death threats from viewers who couldn’t separate the actor from her character.

“It’s always good to place villians. It’s intriguing, though. It has its consequences in a soap because I did get death threats at the end,” she explained.

“It’s very disturbing that people can’t divide between your character and yourself. They don’t know you’re acting.

“It subsided after about a month, but the security at the Beeb got involved. The police, they were saying, ‘Don’t tell anyone where you’re going, don’t go out too much, don’t do this, don’t do that’.”

Badland added: “It was a bit scary to begin with. They could trace some of it, but it was public computers so they couldn’t get anywhere specific, but it subsided.”

While Badland said she lived in fear at the time, she also said she eventually took the messages as “a compliment” over her portrayal of the villainous character.

As for whether she’ll ever return to the soap, the actor added: “I’d go for a storyline or something.

“I don’t know [if] I’d commit for an indefinite period, but you know, you never know. It depends what they come up with.”