Former EastEnders actress Cheryl Fergison revealed she was struggling to pay her bills and had to go to a food bank after being treated for uterine cancer.

The Walford icon, known for playing Heather Trott on the BBC A soap from 2007 to 2012 as well as Celebrity Big Brother and The IT Crowd, was diagnosed in 2015 and shared her condition in April 2024.

The soap star, who lives in Cleveleys, Lancashirerevealed earlier this year that she had a hysterectomy and experienced early onset menopause because of the treatment she underwent before she got the green light.

She detailed The Sunday Mirror how she had to stop acting due to treatment, which caused her money problems, as well as mental health issues.

Cheryl, 60, previously said she had been financially supported by former EastEnders colleague Dame Barbara Windsordied in 2020 at the age of 83, and by February of this year she had nothing left.

“I didn’t have money for my weekly groceries, I was trying to pay off too much debt,” she said.

“It was a really difficult time. Many people can relate to it. You’re trying to find a penny. You literally look at your couch to see if you can find a match.

This comes after Cheryl said she was selling her old scripts and reservations at a Chinese restaurant to help pay his bills.

She told OK! : “I think people need to understand that we have to earn a living, we don’t always have the chance to film all the time and work in the profession that we have chosen and trained.”

Earlier this year, Rudolph Walker – known as Patrick Trueman on EastEnders – revealed that he had been without stable housing for some timewhile working on the soap opera, and had to live in a hotel with shared toilets due to money problems.

He told the Daily Mirror he “had no financial means” despite being 70 and “nowhere to live”.

The 85-year-old said: “Some days on the way to the studio I would stop on the side of the road and cry.

“I would pull myself together, I would arrive at the studio and the environment would act as a tonic, and I would be ready to go. I guess it was kind of a double life.

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