Former EastEnders star Katie Jarvis has said she’d was left feeling “hurt” and “ashamed” after a tabloid job-shamed her for working as a security guard.
The ex-Hayley Slater actor was the subject of a front page story in the Daily Star Sunday, which revealed she now had a job at discount store B&M.
The article drew widespread criticism from actors across the industry upon publication, with Katie herself now speaking out about the distress it caused her.
Appearing on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire Show, Katie said: “I woke up really embarrassed and made to feel quite ashamed to be honest.
“Over my career, I’ve done my best to try and stay away from social gatherings, get-togethers and celebrity things to keep my private life as private as possible. So to wake up with my kids and see myself on the front pages just for simply having a job in between my acting, it really did hurt me.”
Katie, who has two children, continued: “It took a day or so for me to let it all digest and to realise that I had nothing to be ashamed about, because all actors go through it.
“Over the years, I’ve had so many different jobs in between. When I was 17 and got cast for Fish Tank, I was doing the doughnuts with my uncle at the time, at festivals and things like that. I’ve been a waitress, I’ve worked in a credit card company, I’ve done admin – I’ve done all types of things.
“One of my sisters, she calls me a dabbler, and that’s because I seem to do a little bit of everything. I like to be busy and I like to learn new things, it doesn’t matter what it is.”
She added: “It doesn’t matter what job you’re doing, I don’t think anyone should be made to feel like I did when I woke up. As long as you’re working, that’s all that matters.”
Katie joined the cast of EastEnders as an addition to the Slater clan in February 2018, before leaving the soap at the start of the year when her character Hayley ran away from a psychiatric hospital.
Katie has been supported by a number of her former co-stars and fellow actors online, who revealed they’d also worked a number of other jobs to earn money in between roles.
Katie first rose to fame in the Bafta-award winning film Fish Tank in 2009, taking on the lead role of a volatile and socially isolated teenager who had an affair with her mother’s boyfriend, played by Michael Fassbender.