EastEnders star Cheryl Fergison, who played the beloved Heather Trott in the BBC soap, has opened up about her money struggles after she was scammed by someone very close to her
EastEnders’ Cheryl Fergison was left without a penny to her name.
In her candid new memoir Behind The Scenes, the Heather Trott actress opens up about her life, career and personal struggles.
Soap star Fergison describes how she was left financially ruined after being deceived by her own accountant: “I’m a survivor. It’s not that I’m a glass half full person; I just know I am lucky to have a glass at all.”
“I wanted to pulverise him, really I did. I wanted to grab him by the collar and scream in his face. I wanted him to feel the crushing panic I’d felt, the betrayal and the grief,” reveals Cheryl, recalling how in 2012 she left the Celebrity Big Brother house only to discover her accountant had swindled her, reports the Mirror.
“For five years, I paid him. For five years he pocketed the money and didn’t pay a single penny to HMRC. Everything I had built, saved and worked for was gone.”
“I don’t use the word hate very often. It’s a heavy word, one you can’t always take back, but in this case I meant it. I hated him. Not just for what he did, but for how he made me feel about myself, for the mess he left behind. For every sleepless night, every tear, every humiliating phone call to the tax office, to banks, to friends trying to figure out how the hell I was going to keep my head above water.”
Cheryl confessed that “going broke when you’re famous is the worst” because people around you “expect you to have a lot of money,” not “juggling overdrafts, maxed out credit cards, payday loans and mountains of bills”.
“I’d just come out of one of the biggest soaps in the country, I’d done Celebrity Big Brother, I was still in the papers, still recognised in the street but behind the scenes I was totally skint.”
The Blackpool-born actress, who appeared in EastEnders between 2007 and 2012, also touched on her personal relationships and revealed how she separated from her former husband Jay Saddiqi in 2008 after eight years togehter.
In an excerpt taken from her memoir, she explains how she realised he had been unfaithful: “I pulled the seatbelt across my body and then it hit me. A scent. Light, sweet, floral and powdery, but definitely not mine.
“‘Jay, why can I smell women’s perfume on the seatbelt?’ I said, sniffing it again like a bloodhound. He snapped his head round, a flicker of annoyance flashing in his eyes: ‘You’re imagining things, Cheryl.'”
“To this day, every time I get into a car and pull on a seatbelt, I sniff it. I began to suspect that my husband was cheating on me, but I tried to convince myself I was wrong.”
A phone bill then landed on the doormat, showing calls to an unfamiliar number. When she dialled it a woman picked up, but when she rang again Jay’s voice answered.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
