Richard Blackwood has admitted he was “hurt” to be written out of ‘EastEnders’.
The actor, who has played Vincent Hubbard for three years in the BBC soap, had previously credited the role with changing his life after he considered suicide prior to landing the part.
But the 45-year-old insisted there was “no bad vibe” between him and soap bosses, after it was announced he would be leaving Albert Square earlier this month.
In an interview with So Solid Crew’s MC Harvey, he said: “There was no bad vibe between me and EastEnders [about] leaving.
“It just so happened that I came to the end of my contract and they weren’t going to renew it.
“Don’t get me wrong, a part of me felt a bit hurt. Because I’ve done all this.”
He continued: “So when I came into EastEnders... I said if I get more than one year, I reckon I’m going to do three years... EastEnders is its [own] movie, I’m a character within it...My character within that movie had to leave.”
The actor also stated that he hadn’t been happy with his character’s recent storylines.
He explained: “This is no disrespect to [EastEnders], but the storyline, where it started to go, I wasn’t feeling.”
Vincent made his first appearance on the soap in February 2015 as the husband of long-running character Kim Fox.
His storylines have included him accidentally killing Arthur ‘Fatboy’ Chubb and being part of Aidan McGuire’s botched heist, which also saw the gangster threaten his life.
Prior to joining the soap, Richard enjoyed many years of success as a presenter on MTV, but he disappeared from the limelight when his music career failed to take off. In 2015 he confessed this fall from grace hit him hard.
“I was young and had all this money, and I just thought it would never stop. I was buying things I didn’t need,” he explained.
“I had lots of hangers-on at the height of my fame and they all wanted a piece of the action.
“I had a TV show, MTV and a music career simultaneously. It was a roller-coaster that had to hit a wall at some point because it was too much. For any young guy, that is too much too soon.”
Things got worse in 2003, when he was declared bankrupt, with him revealing that when the work dried up he fell into a depression that left him contemplating suicide.
He says: “It was very real for me back then. Every time I walked out of the house, I was reminded by people that I had failed.
“I actually tried to throw myself out of a window, and that’s very true. An ex-girlfriend at the time stopped me from doing it. But it was a very dark time.”