Former EastEnders Rita Simons lamented she was 'gutted' to be killed off.
In New Year's Day's controversial episode, her character Roxy Mitchell drowned in a swimming pool with her sister Ronnie (played by Samantha Womack, 46).
The I'm A Celeb star confessed she didn't want her character to be slayed because she had played her for 10 years.
She told Good Morning Britain: "Obviously it’s no secret we were gutted to leave, because we loved our characters.
"I love Sam, she’s my best friend, you become a pretend family.
"We did want to leave but we didn’t want to die. And to watch your “sister” die, and to willingly kill your own character you’ve played for 10 years and you love, is a weird dilemma to be in, because you have to do the filming…"
Rita walked in Roxy's stilettos for 10 years from 2007 until 2017 when her character was killed off.
The BBC offered an alternative version for fans which saw sister Ronnie survive and find Roxy's corpse on a pool table in a clip seen on the official Snapchat account.
Despite having filmed with the soap for 10 years, the actress admitted her death sequence was the "weirdest thing" she has ever seen.
Rita shared the great lengths she went to while shooting the dark scenes for the soap.
She added: "We laid in the pool for four hours with floats on our backs, there were divers arranging our dresses, and eventually that crane shot you saw came in and it just pans out.
"We both watched it when it aired, it was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen.
"What people don’t get is how much you invest yourself into the character you’re playing."
