Julia Sawalha’s TV comeback on The Masked Singer and ITV drama Vera has been a big hit with fans but it’s brought up something else.
Despite sharing her personal life and pouring out her heart on the popular ITV daytime show Loose Women, Nadia Sawalha remained tight lipped on her baby sister’s unmasking as Bubble Tea last weekend. And Julia’s return to primetime telly has reminded fans of the sisters bitter feud.
Julia who shot to fame as moody Saffy in sitcom Absolutely Fabulous helped Nadia get into acting and opened doors for her in the acting world. But nowadays the lookalike pair are reported to have never spoken in years and live completely separate lives despite both being related. The sisters don’t even follow each other’s social media accounts.
And their row spilt over into the public eye when it emerged they couldn’t stand the sight of one another. The pair who share a strong resemblance grew up with eldest sister Dina in Croydon, South London.
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But Nadia revealed that she was jealous of Julia’s bond with their parents when she was a child and after Julia was born, Nadia was forced to live apart from her family. She said: “When my mum had Julia, I was so excited I kept wanting to pick her up and cuddle her.
(Image: PA)
“My mum, who was a bit postnatal, got scared and sent me to her mother’s. Julia was a beautiful baby and everyone was crazy about her, so my sister Dina and I were a bit jealous. And as she grew up she was very much ‘Daddy’s little girl’.”
Cracks between the sisters came as Nadia revealed how Julia helped her get into acting and let her move in with her, which saw rows break out between the young women at the time. Nadia’s first role was playing the role of Annie Palmer in EastEnders from 1997 to 1999.
Despite being in the UK’s most popular soap at that time she recalls feeling like she was living in her little sister’s shadow, saying: “When I went into EastEnders everyone called me Julia. It made me feel insecure.” Julia who also played Lynda Day, editor of the Junior Gazette, in Press Gang and Lydia Bennet in the 1995 television miniseries of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice suffered a huge fallout from Nadia over Julia’s then-boyfriend, the Jonathan Creek actor Alan Davies.
Nadia called the notoriously private comic “a miserable git” after he complained about photos of him at Nadia’s wedding in a magazine saying of him: “I’ve never liked one of Julia’s boyfriends yet. For a comedian, he’s a miserable git.”
(Image: UK Press via Getty Images)
When Julia and Alan broke up in 2004 she and Nadia got back in contact after two years of now speaking and seemed to get their sisterly bond back on track. Julia stepped back from acting and moved to Bath in Somerset and Nadia said of their first fall out: “We’ve had some rocky times, but the culprit has always been men.”
Julia’s version of it was she was up visiting her mother in London and Nadia who lives in the same street was visible through the window prompting Julia to go over and see her.to see her mother prompted her and Nadia to start talking again. Speaking about that time, Julia said: “I walked over to her house. She came to the door and I said: ‘I miss you.’ ‘Oh, Julia,’ she said, ‘how brave of you!’ We hugged. I thought she didn’t love me. Now I know it’s the opposite.”
All was going swimmingly between the sisters until 2019, when Julia claimed Nadia had been “destroying” her family and spreading “lies and rubbish” in a furious tweet.
(Image: BBC)
Nadia had shared memories of growing up with with her sisters and touched on her past “volatile” relationship with Julia during an an episode of Loose Women that year. She had said: “So we’ve always had periods of time in our life where we don’t speak. I always say I have the best time or the worst time of my life with her. It’s the same with both my sisters.”
Continuing the discussion at the time, Nadia added: “My dad always says ‘formidable women’. That’s all he wanted. He came to this country with £50 in his pocket because he wanted six daughters who were free.
“His sister was married at 14. He said ‘I want strong, independent, professional women that follow their dreams. What he got was free very independent, difficult women. Because of that we have a very intense on and off relationship.”
However, after watching the revealing episode of the show segment, Julia didn’t hold back giving her version of events and Tweeted: “So tired of #nadiasawalha talking about our ‘stormy’ relationship which she created. I’ve kept my privacy for 6 years to protect my family, whilst she talks lies & rubbish.
“You have destroyed our family so don’t sit on TV with your fake tears to gain sympathy & attention. Yes well it’s very difficult when you only see the story from one side. I’m not actually fighting, she is, but paints a very different picture publicly and I’ve had enough.”
Nadia was living on the same road with her parents and her sister Dina but now their parents have recently moved to Jordan.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
