AN EASTENDERS star has landed a new role after being brutally axed from the soap.
Actress Clair Norris – who plays Bernie Taylor in the BBC soap – left the show earlier this year as new boss Ben Wadey got rid of the remaining Taylor family.
But now she’s landed a new role – in panto Jack and the Beanstalk in Hastings playing Fairy Sunshine.
She told Sussex Express: “I wanted to do panto last year but I had just moved into my first home.
“I wanted to host Christmas but when it came around Christmas this time, I was not doing EastEnders and I didn’t have a busy schedule and I just wanted a new challenge.
“Everyone I spoke to said that you’ve got to do pantomime and that it’s just such fun and that it is just so completely different especially when you’ve been doing television.
“It allows you to be a kid again and it’s really nice during the festive season when you’ve got something else to focus on. I have not got it on my CV and I just want to tick things off.”
The star has played Bernie, the daughter of Karen Taylor, since the family made their debut in 2017.
A source said: “Every time a soap gets a new boss they want to make their own changes – it’s nothing personal.
“The writing has been on the wall for Bernie for some time so it wasn’t really a surprise to Clair.
“She was the last Taylor standing and it’s time to close the chapter on them and let Clair go on to do other things.”
Another insider said: “Everyone at EastEnders loves Clair but often characters have to leave for new stories to begin, that’s the nature of soap.
“Clair will be missed but she will always be part of the EastEnders family.”
An EastEnders spokeswoman confirmed the news saying: “We can confirm that Clair will be leaving EastEnders later this year and we wish her all the best for the future.”
With Clair gone, and Felix actor Matthew Morrison also having left as The Sun previously revealed, all traces of the fan-dividing family have disappeared from screens.
Matriarch Karen Taylor left last year alongside Mitch and their grandchildren Mia and Mackenzie.
Son Keanu was killed off in 2023 in The Six plot, daughter Chantelle was murdered by husband Gray Atkins in 2020, and son Keegan moved to Germany in 2022.
The family of benefits-claiming layabouts were controversial when they arrived in Walford in 2017, with fans being fiercely divided.
