Former EastEnders and Coronation Street star Michelle Collins may have played one of the more recognisable characters in each of the soaps but she has demanded that she is no longer associated with them.
The 57-year-old actress was Cindy Beale in Walford, one of the more iconic characters in the BBC soap's history, as well as being Rovers Return landlady Stella Price in ITV's Corrie.
Michelle has now insisted on social media that she is no longer referred to as a "soap actress" as she finds this labelling "frustrating".
It was 2014 when Michelle turned her back on the world of soaps, when she left her role in Coronation Street and five years later, she had a little rant on Twitter about this still defining who she is.
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To be fair, Michelle lists herself as a "Mother, Actress, dog-lover, charity campaigner, feminist, writer and producer," on her Twitter bio, so there is not much room for soap queen as well.
The Sun has reported that she told her followers: "I wish people would not label me a soap actress it’s very frustrating indeed."
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Michelle quantified her outburst as that her acting past had made it difficult to find work, now that she is in her fifties.
She continued: “It is tougher for women of a certain age. And so you have to broaden your horizons a little bit.
"Things are getting better but they need to change a lot.
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“I think the prejudice isn’t just gender. The prejudice is class in our society. It does make me laugh. It seems to be all posh people on the telly.”
It may have been five years since her last soap appearance, it is over 20 years since her character Cindy died in labour in EastEnders, during 1998.
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