Sarah-Jayne Dunn isn’t waiting quietly in the wings. Five years after she was sacked from the E4 soap Hollyoaks, the former star has taken to Instagram with a direct message to casting teams: she wants acting work again.
The headline detail is the timing. The actress, 44, played Mandy Richardson on and off since 1996, but was axed by show bosses after she refused to leave raunchy website OnlyFans. Since then, according to her own account, she stepped away from TV for four years—earning £1.5 million from the X-rated site and also working as a pole dancing instructor. Even in the way she frames it, there’s this sense of looking back and then, abruptly, turning the page.
In her post, she opens with something almost plain-spoken: “I haven’t been on screen in over 4 years, but that doesn’t mean I stopped wanting it”. Then she moves into a more personal register, like she’s talking to someone who knows the industry but not her private timeline. “But now? I’m a woman in my mid-40s trying to find my way back,” she wrote, explaining that along the way “life shifted” and “my priorities changed, and time just moved on.” And yeah, the line feels like it landed hard for her—she even describes how the thing that used to feel like her started to feel further away.
But she doesn’t stop there. The post swerves into confidence, fear, and the reality of stepping back into a fast-moving world. “It’s equal parts EXCITING and TERRIFYING,” she wrote, adding that as a woman in her 40s, returning “takes a different kind of confidence.” She also suggests there’s something new she can bring—“experience, depth and stories that couldn’t have been told before.” One small moment that sticks in the mind is how she captions the whole thing with a mood mix rather than a promise: “Scared, excited, unsure, but I think I’m ready”.
There’s also the darker context she’s carried alongside her career shift. Misryoum editorial desk noted that last year Sarah claimed OnlyFans was “safer” than working on Hollyoaks, saying she feels more in control. She previously described being the victim of a terrifying stalker ordeal, with show bosses unable to do anything about it. She told Misryoum reporting that it was “horrendous messages” that were “really disturbing,” and that she contacted the police—only to find “they don’t do anything and they can’t do anything. And that’s terrifying.”
And if that sounds like a separate story from the acting appeal, she connects them in her own way. She explained that messages sent on OnlyFans, unlike other social media sites, are pixilated and she can choose whether to look at them or not. She slammed bosses for “blatant hypocrisy” after being “sexualised” through calendar shoots on the soap, and also revealed trolls branded her “cheap” for joining OnlyFans—though she insists she “wished she’d done it sooner.” The emotional center of it is how she felt sexualised “for my entire adult life,” then hit with the stinger that she couldn’t do it “on my own terms.”
In the end, her Instagram message reads like a door left open—part plea, part declaration. “If you’re casting, creating or reading this… I’m here,” she wrote. “And if you’re ever felt the pull to return to something you love, go for it!” She repeats the same thought more than once, which makes it feel less like marketing and more like someone trying to convince herself as much as anyone else. And somewhere between the fear and the pull, you get the sense this isn’t just about getting back on screen—it’s about reclaiming what she says she never stopped wanting. Maybe not everyone will come rushing. But the post is loud enough that casting directors can’t pretend they didn’t see it.
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