The iconic villainess made her big return to the BBC One soap on Wednesday night<\/a> (21st June 2023) as she was revealed to be the missing wife of George Knight (Colin Salmon<\/a>), who he knew as Rose Knight<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thursday night\u2019s extended episode<\/a> (22nd June 2023) saw it revealed that Cindy was forced to go into witness protection in 1998 to protect herself and her family from her former cellmate and gangster Jackie Ford.<\/p>\n However, with Ford\u2019s death, Cindy is told by her handler DCI Mary Nicholls (Penny Layden) that her witness protection is over now and she can do whatever she wants.<\/p>\n Will Cindy stay with her current partner and her first husband Ian Beale<\/a> (Adam Woodyatt) or could she return to George?<\/p>\n Speaking to RadioTimes.com<\/a> and other press at an event for Cindy Beale\u2019s return to EastEnders, actress Michelle Collins discussed the circumstances surrounding Cindy\u2019s surprise comeback, in particular explaining how her death was faked.<\/p> When asked about the new twists in Cindy\u2019s life, Collins laughed: \u201cYeah, again, she\u2019s got more children (laughs) More names to remember, living this double life.<\/p>\n \u201cActually, you know, I am a podcast addict. I love podcasts. I listen to them all the time and I listened to a lot about witness protection and actually, it\u2019s not that far off. There are stories where people do things like this, and they completely go away and have these, kind of, completely different identities. So it\u2019s kind of feasible. I mean, I don\u2019t want to give kind of too much away.\u201d<\/p>\n Collins also noted: \u201cI always remember saying things the only way they could do it was with witness protection.\u201d<\/p>\n Discussing how her experiences have changed Cindy, Collins added that she and executive producer Chris Clenshaw were keen that she was not \u201cjust gonna come back and be exactly the same as she was before\u201d.<\/p>\n Clenshaw told Collins that Cindy is \u201ccomplex, of course, she\u2019s complex and we want that.\u201d<\/p>\n Read More<\/strong><\/p>\n The actress then added that the questions will be: \u201cWhere she was, where has she been? What has she been doing these last kind of years?<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s kind of genius. The way it\u2019s all been put together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u200cIn fact, Clenshaw revealed that the team behind the scenes of EastEnders were very keen to make Cindy\u2019s return story credible.<\/p>\n The executive producer noted: \u201cSo it was making sure that that worked and we had to the witness protection story and then we made sure that it worked with our researchers and our advisors and, you know, came back and said, \u2018Yeah, this is, in fact, what could and would happen\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s when I kind of was like \u2018Oh, okay, I think we\u2019ve got a shot of being able to do this.’\u201d<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n EastEnders airs Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm on BBC One and from 6am on BBC iPlayer.\u00a0<\/strong>Visit our dedicated\u00a0EastEnders<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0page\u00a0<\/strong>for all the latest news, interviews and spoilers.\u00a0<\/strong>If you\u2019re looking for more to watch, check out our\u00a0<\/strong>TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Take part in\u00a0the Screen Test<\/a>, a project from Radio Times and the Universities of Sussex and Brighton, to explore the role of television and audio in our lives.<\/strong><\/p>\n Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only \u00a31 with delivery to your home \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>subscribe now<\/strong><\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0<\/strong>The Radio Times Podcast<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Actress Michelle Collins always knew this was the route to go down. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":34146,"template":"","categories":[1,2,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/eastenders-michelle-collins-talks-cindy-beale-witness-protection-story.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/eastenders-michelle-collins-talks-cindy-beale-witness-protection-story-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/eastenders-michelle-collins-talks-cindy-beale-witness-protection-story-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/eastenders-michelle-collins-talks-cindy-beale-witness-protection-story.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/eastenders-michelle-collins-talks-cindy-beale-witness-protection-story.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/eastenders-michelle-collins-talks-cindy-beale-witness-protection-story.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/06\/eastenders-michelle-collins-talks-cindy-beale-witness-protection-story.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Actress Michelle Collins always knew this was the route to go down.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/34145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\""Michelle\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/06\/436760-7e45ad9.jpg?quality=90&crop=12px%2C0px%2C1621px%2C1080px&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"436760,EastEnders\"\\"\/")
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