EastEnders' Lacey Turner's life – Ibiza marriage, tragic miscarriage to baby joy

Lacey Turner has been an EastEnders favourite ever since she first strutted into Albert Square almost 17 years ago.

The actress has made her name playing Stacey Slater in the BBC soap – a part she has amassed piles of accolades for – and she’s also had memorable turns in TV shows such as Bedlam, Switch and Our Girl.

But as well as being one our best-loved soap stars, the 33-year-old is a busy wife and mum to two young children.

Sadly, Lacey and her husband have faced their fair share of heartbreak during their journey to start a family.

Here, we have a look at Lacey’s life off-screen.

Growing up near EastEnders set

Landing a job on EastEnders was something of a full circle moment for Lacey as she actually grew up near the set of the soap and it’s one of the reasons she developed an interest in acting.

The star was brought up in Hertfordshire and lived just minutes from Elstree Studios.

In fact, she lived so close she could actually see the set.

She once said in an interview: “From my bedroom window you could see part of the Square, and you could hear them all filming at night. I used to say to my mum, ‘I wanna be on that!'”

Getting started

Once she had set her sights on being a performer, Lacey enrolled at a stage school.

However, it wasn’t the happiest time as she was teased by some of her classmates.

Deciding it wasn’t for her, the budding star left and went to a normal school, and honed her stage and screen skills at weekend classes instead.

Her hard work paid off and Lacey went on to bag some TV adverts, including a Haribo commercial.

Then in 2004 she landed a small part in an episode of The Worst Witch.

Other EastEnders audition

Lacey originally tried out for the part of Demi Miller in EastEnders.

She auditioned in early 2004 but didn’t land the role, which ended up going to Shana Swash.

However, it seems she had caught somebody’s eye as a few months later she was invited back to try out and won the part of Stacey Slater.

She made her debut on the soap in November 2004, just after leaving school, and has said that she felt as if she had realised her “greatest ambition”.

Ibiza wedding

While Stacey was involved in a very tangled romance with Max Branning (Jake Wood) in Walford, off screen she was romancing Matt Kay.

She met Matt – who owns a barber shop – when they were teenagers so the pair are childhood sweethearts.

They jetted off to Ibiza to get married in 2017, with several family members, friends and some of Lacey’s soap cast mates joining them for the big day.

The actress later told OK! that she felt “really lucky” to have had such a special day with her Mr Right.

Miscarriage heartbreak

Lacey suffered two miscarriages before realising her dream of being a mum.

Her first was in 2017, when she was seven weeks pregnant.

Speaking in Channel 5 documentary Miscarriage: Our Story, she said she felt “so empty” afterwards.

“I was completely empty,” she said. “I’d gone from being so excited, and we’d waited so long for this baby, to feeling numb.”

Lacey kept quiet about what had happened and went back to work on EastEnders, and said she was “probably walking around feeling so heartbroken yet nobody would have had a clue”.

Baby joy

In February 2019 the star announced that she and Matt were expecting, telling OK! at the time that she’d had “about 12 scans” because hearing the baby’s heartbeat was so important to her after experiencing losses.

Lacey welcomed daughter Dusty in July that year, calling her new daughter “a miracle”.

Last September, Lacey announced that she had a second bundle of joy on the way.

She and Matt welcomed baby boy Trilby Fox in February this year.

Explaining her son’s unusual name, Lacey told OK!: “I always thought it was such a cool name.

“I knew a girl once and her sister was called Trilby Fox and I always thought it was such a cool name, and I quite liked it for a boy, so I’ve had it in my head for a really long time!”

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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk