EastEnders star Heather Peace told the Daily Star at the Diva Awards on April 24, during Lesbian Visibility Week, why she’s proud to play Eve Unwin, as we caught up with celebs at the star-studded event
After years of playing straight roles, Heather Peace has spoken about how proud she is to portray EastEnders ’ Eve Unwin. The Daily Star caught up with the soap star at the Diva Awards last night (April 24), during Lesbian Visibility Week, where she revealed the one piece of advice she’d give Eve if she met her in real life.
“[This week] I’ve been mainly busy being a lesbian on the Eastanders with my fake wife, all week, actually, we’ve had a very busy week, being visible, as lesbians on Eastanders,” Heather exclusively told the Daily Star.
Heather’s groundbreaking character has helped boost lesbian visibility on primetime TV, bringing nuanced, long-running representation.
She revealed: “I spent so many years, not in the closet, but playing straight roles. For the first 15 years of my career.
“With soap, you get to tell long arc stories. You really get to delve into the nuances of stories. So yeah, hopefully, we’re doing the lesbians proud.”
Eve has become one of EastEnders’ standout characters. She’s a resilient, quick-witted powerhouse defined by fierce loyalty, sharp humour and the occasional fiery temper.
Heather has played a key role in shaping Eve’s feisty streak, as she admitted: “She’s quite masculine. She’s on the boyish spectrum, for sure.
“That was a choice.” The 50-year-old actress reflected on meeting Eve in real life.
She said: [If I could ask her a question, it would be] ‘will you be my friend?’ I think Eve is the greatest friend you could ever want.
“She is so fiercely loyal and protective and will fight her corner, and she doesn’t backbite and b—-. The loyalty is off the scale.
“I think she’s an absolutely awesome, awesome person through and through.” However, Heather did have an advice for real-life Eve: “I’d tell her to stop sabotaging things.
“I’d tell her to stop getting blind drunk when things don’t go her way, ’cause that’s when bad s— happens.
“I’d say when bad s— happens, before, just take a breath, maybe take a walk in the fresh air. Don’t go straight to the bar.”
Away from EastEnders, Peace said she thrives on juggling acting with music, admitting she loves being on set because “actors… tend to be the funniest people ever”, while her music gives her “me time” to “hone in and write and produce”. When it comes to switching off, the star insisted it’s all about home life with “my three children and my wife”, plus their new six-month-old pup Otis – “half sausage, half Shih Tzu” – with sunny park walks and ice creams her idea of “heaven”.
And as for who’s really in charge of the dog, Peace laughed: “[My wife] Ellie… she’s absolutely the pack leader, I’m second in command.”
Christine McGuinness also attended the star-studded event and reflected on what Lesbian Visibility Week has meant to her as she becomes more open publicly. While the model and TV personality said she had discussed her sexuality “privately with my family… from very young”, Christine admitted she has only spoken about it openly in the last couple of years, explaining she held back “for fear of judgment” and not wanting “another label” on top of being autistic, having ADHD and going through divorce.
She said Lesbian Visibility Week had been “reflective”, adding that seeing other women’s stories, and messages from people saying “I wish I had the courage”, underlined why visibility matters. While Christine stressed she doesn’t feel she needs a label, she said she can say “quite confidently right now” that she would “only consider dating women”, joking: “I’m a sucker for a stud (a Black masculine-presenting lesbian or queer person)”.
The Daily Star further caught up with I Kissed A Girl star Amy Spalding, who admitted Lesbian Visibility Week had been “amazing”, despite a last-minute travel nightmare after she “lost my passport” ahead of a planned trip to Egypt. Amy said she’s been throwing herself into a loud new campaign with her brand, explaining the aim was to get the “gang back together” and be “as loud and vocal and in your faces as one should be”, particularly in the wake of the BBC cancelling the show.
Calling the decision “heartbreaking” and “absolutely devastating”, she said it also felt “kind of expected” given how often LGBTQIA+ representation is “ripped away”, adding she’s determined not to let it “slip away” and wants to keep fighting for more mainstream sapphic visibility. Amy also revealed she’d “absolutely love” to do more TV, said she’d choose a female partner if she ever did Strictly, and announced she’s written a book, out June 18, described as an “ultimate” guide to sapphic life, celebrating queerness, community and queer history, complete with frank, funny dating and first-time stories.
Oscar Davies, the UK’s first publicly recognised non-binary barrister, stunned at the Diva Awards’ red carpet. They said their work is currently focused on trans rights amid what they described as trans people being “villainised”.
Oscar argued that much of the debate has become fixated on single-sex spaces such as toilets and changing rooms, warning the current climate has fuelled “social policing” that leaves some people “too scared to use the toilets”, and can impact not only trans people but also masculine women and women of colour. Urging a more compassionate approach, they said the focus should be on “bigger issues, like [the] cost of living crisis” rather than treating trans people as “the problem”, adding: “Humans have rights… it shouldn’t be some human rights. It should be all human rights.”
With the assisted dying bill having failed to become law earlier that day, Oscar said they support assisted dying in principle, saying it goes to “bodily autonomy” and arguing that opposition often “lack[s] compassion for the individual”.
