YouTubeEastenders‘ Lucy Beale was the victim of a whodunnit that got the nation talking, after coming to a very sticky end.
Happily though, the actor who played Lucy for six years (before Hetti Bywater was cast in the role) is doing much better than her old on-screen alter ego.
Melissa Suffield played the Eastend smart-mouth until she left the show in 2010, but six years on and this is what she looks like now.
Funnily enough, Melissa has grown up a lot since her BBC soap opera days – because that is in fact how time passing affects most of us unless we’re Benjamin Button.
Although the tattoos are henna, the piercing is fake and she’s kept her blonde locks, she does look quite different.
But she seems to channel Lucy Beale’s sass every now and again.
Suffield was axed from the BBC soap after she was caught drinking underage on set – although, admittedly she was just a few weeks from turning 18 at the time.
Suffield is still in the performing arts industry and by the looks of things, she loves role playing and dressing up as much as she did as a child actor.
She frequents the ballet and pantomime circuits.
Suffield even played the great Marilyn Monroe in one production.
After Suffield left Eastenders she spoke out about being harassed and bullied by audience members who apparently couldn’t distinguish between fact and fiction.
At one stage, the bullying was so bad she feared for her life, telling the Mirror she’d been pushed onto train tracks:
I feared for my life.
I was genuinely terrified. I tried to put on a brave face but inside I was petrified. I thought they wanted to kill me.
Hopefully now 23-year-old Melissa can live a quieter life away from the pressures and strains of the spotlight, which she was flung into at the meagre age of 11.
By the looks of her Instagram, she’s now more keen to hang out with her cat and boyfriend than other stars of the screen; a girl after my own heart.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.