RITA Simons has revealed why the time was right to quit Hollyoaks after 19 months on the soap – and addressed rumours that her EastEnders character could soon be revived from the dead.

The actress, 48, ended her Hollyoaks stint as Marie Fielding this autumn by relocating to Liverpool‘s famous Brookside Close after faking a pregnancy and plotting to steal Cleo McQueen’s baby from a neonatal unit.

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It was memorable and suitably dramatic for a modern day soap queen.

There was no job in place for Rita when she made the decision to leave, just a gut instinct that the time was right to move on and a calling to return to London to be closer to family.

She’d learned from her experience on EastEnders years earlier that overstaying on any one show can be a risky businesswhen it comes to branching out and winning new roles.

“I’ve got really good in my old age at listening to my heart really miss home,” she exclusively tells The Sun.

“I never intended on staying up in Liverpool forever, but I just suddenly was finding it really difficult going up and down the motorway all the time.

“When you live in the city where you work, yes, it’s difficult on a soap, but on a day off or after work, you can pop to your mum. I had to organise a day off to travel down, seeing my kids, my mum.

“The kids were spending more and more time up with me, which was great, but then we wouldn’t be seeing any of our other family at the same time. And I just went, you know what? It’s not worth it. Life is, life is for family, for friends. Of course, we’ve got to work, but I was just starting to really feel the pull to London was too much. It really was.”

Rita insists the decision, while clear cut, wasn’t easy and she called her adopted home city “bloody gorgeous” and “full of amazing people”.

She’s already had a number of business meetings with TV bosses about starring in dramas next year, and she feels they probably wouldn’t have presented themselves had she not become a free agent.

Speaking on behalf of WhichBingo, she continues: “I believe firmly in you can’t open new doors till you shut the ones behind you, and that’s where I’m at.”

She’s targeting gritty dramas, gangster flicks and comedies, and wouldn’t be averse to starring in her favourite reality show either – Celebrity Traitors.

There have been whispers that her EastEnders character Roxy Mitchell and on-screen sister Ronnie [Samantha Womack] are in line for a return to the Square next year in some form or another, eight years after their tragic deaths.

Rita says conversations haven’t taken place, but that’s not to say she wouldn’t welcome them.

“It just doesn’t, it doesn’t stop,” she says. “Someone, I won’t name them, said to me the other day ‘the resilience of your fans is impressive’.

“And it is. Listen, if it was a meeting, we’d be there. But no, I’ve been having lots of very sort of, I’m looking at the gritty dramas, the comedies, the gangster stuff.

“Of course, if EastEnders came knocking, we’d definitely have a conversation.”

She continues: “I think that’s kind of another reason I knew it was time to leave Hollyoaks because I knew that I always wanted to do more drama. And I think it’s easier to transcend when you don’t hang around too long.

“EastEnders, we hung around long enough. We had already been saying, like, maybe we should go if we ever want to do other things.

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“But it’s such a nice place to be. We just kind of stayed. So I think with Hollyoaks, I’ve learned that lesson and gone, you know what? You’re having those thoughts. Just do it.”

In one of Enders’ most heartbreaking episodes ever, Roxy drowned in a pool after partying at sister Ronnie’s wedding reception.

The inseparable siblings went out together, with Ronnie dying after jumping in to save her sister while wearing her wedding dress.

The shock of the cold combined with drug use caused Roxy to suffer a fatal heart attack, while Ronnie was bogged down in her bridal gown.

Roxy already briefly returned in 2023 as a figment of daughter Amy’s imagination in a therapy session, but in soapland a leftfield twist, no matter how implausible, is never far away.