“Ross Kemp’s Shocking Revelation: Barbara Windsor’s Daily Influence and the Urgent Path She Wants Me to Follow
I think of Barbara Windsor daily & try to follow in her footsteps – I know what she wants me to do next, says Ross Kemp
ROSS Kemp has revealed how he thinks of Barbara Windsor every day – and he knows what she would want him to do next.
The 59-year-old actor worked with the legendary star for many years on EastEnders when he played Grant Mitchell and Barbara played his on-screen mother, Peggy Mitchell.
They had such a close bond that Ross even agreed to return to the BBC soap in 2016 as part of Barbara’s heartbreaking exit storyline.
In December last year, it was three years since Barbara passed away aged 83, following a battle with Alzheimer’s Disease, and Ross revealed he still thinks of her every day.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun’s TV Mag, he said: “She’s someone that I loved, and I spoke to, I spent a lot of time with.
“I’ve got a picture of her in my house, so I bounce past that every day – it’s a picture of her when she was about 23, wearing not very much, funnily enough, but I don’t think of her in that way! I was just very fond of her.
“And she was one of those old big stars, you know, probably the like we will never see again. And she was a friend and I was very close to her.”
Recalling how they became close on the EastEnders set, Ross said: “The set at the Vic is a bar, obviously, that goes around in a sort of semi horseshoe, and then there’s a stairwell that goes up through the middle of it, and that stairs goes nowhere.
“It goes up into some lights. But I’d let her sit on the stairs and I’d sit on a crate and we just natter in between takes.”
Asked what advise she would give him about his life now, he joked: “I wouldn’t listen to her advice! Barbara? Listen to her advice?!”
