When it comes to Soapland, not a thing is off-limits – and some things even filter through to real life.
From incest to teen pregnancies, soaps have constantly broken barriers when it comes to the taboo – and if programmes hadn’t made history with the first trans and gay characters on a soap screen, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Now Home and Away is set to break yet another barrier as newcomer Stacey drops a huge bombshell on Xander, telling him she wants an open relationship.
READ NEXT: Home and Away re-castings – pregnancy exit, alcoholism and prison stint
Life imitates art, and plenty of soap stars had their own opinions on the subject over the years – with EastEnders legend Barbara Windsor encouraging her toyboy hubby to seek out sex elsewhere.
Daily Star takes a look at the soap stars who didn’t close off their marriages.
Barbara Windsor
(Image: PA)
EastEnders icon Barbara Windsor’s marriage “wasn’t a closed book”, according to her widower Scott Mitchell.
Barbara wanted Scott, who was 27 years younger than her, to “enjoy himself” – and though Scott insisted they weren’t in an open relationship, he admitted Barbara encouraged him to stay out clubbing while she went home, and that they had “a similar attitude towards sex”.
In his book By Your Side: My Life Loving Barbara Windsor, Scott wrote: “On only our second date Bar had talked to me in detail about her many, many conquests. She said it was always good to brush the cobwebs away. Ours was not an open relationship, but it wasn’t a closed book either.
(Image: ITV)
“She had always said sex was sex and love was love, and she wasn’t one for double standards, so she kept her reservations to herself and never asked me directly.”
However, when Scott and Barbara headed out for a night on the town, Barbara grew tired of partying before he did – and encouraged him to stay out.
Not for sex, but “to score some coke”.
Scott confessed that their arrangement “did start to get a bit mixed up”.
Bonnie Bartlett Daniels
(Image: Getty Images)
General Hospital and St Elsewhere star Bonnie Bartlett Daniels admitted she found her open marriage “painful”, opening up in a recent memoir.
The American actress married co-star William Daniels way back in 1951 – but it wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows.
She confessed: “I guess it was a little bit of an open marriage at first, but that was very painful. That didn’t work well. And it was a time when people were doing that.
“It was at a time in New York when there was a lot of sex and a lot of people doing all kinds of things, you know – very free. But I don’t know if there was a lack of commitment a little bit, and that’s not good.
“So there was a lot of pain connected with any transgression, with any extramarital thing.”
The star added that it was “something we had to go through”, despite being “painful for both of [them]”.
Samantha Giles
(Image: sammeegiles/Twitter)
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It isn’t always as dramatic in real life as it is in Soapland – especially not for Emmerdale star Samantha Giles.
Asked her opinions on open marriage back in 2015, when her character Bernice Blackstock was battling with an open relationship with Lawrence at Home Farm, Samantha was quick to slam the very concept.
She explained to What to Watch that she would warn Bernice away from opening up her marriage.
“In my opinion, there’s no such thing as an open marriage. What’s the point of getting married?” she wondered.
However, Samantha was embroiled in her own controversy when she had an affair with co-star Claire King’s husband Peter Amory.
She insisted the pair started dating after both their marriages broke down – though Claire disagreed.
Thankfully they’re now friends again – but an open relationship likely isn’t on the cards for either.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
