NATALIE Cassidy has revealed she earns around £150,000 a year playing Sonia Fowler on EastEnders.
The actress, 39, has starred as the iconic character on the BBC soap since she was just 10 years old and is one of the longest standing members of the cast.
Natalie Cassidy has revealed her impressive EastEnders salary
The star is one of EastEnders’ best loved characters
Natalie and other stars of the show are notoriously tight lipped about their salary, but the mum-of-two let slip her whopping pay packet during an appearance on the Chatabix podcast.
Hosts David Earl and Joe Wilkinson couldn’t resist quizzing her about it, and jokingly suggested she “must be coining it in”.
But she said: “Who me? You’re having a f***ing laugh. Let’s play a game. What do you think it is a year?”
And they guessed straight away, asking if she earns £150,000 and she sheepishly replied: “Not bad, not bad.”
Natalie briefly left the soap in 2007 but returned just two years later to reprise her role.
She has been part of some huge storylines, including finding out she was pregnant at just 15, a rocky marriage to Martin Fowler, blackmail and a lesbian romance.
During the chat, Natalie also gave a rare insight into some of the soap’s secret – admitting it can get pretty smelly at times.
She explained: “The sandwiches in the Minute Mart are all pictures, and they are pictures of salads, but they look really good. They have been there for a while.
“There’s a few times we’ve opened that Minute Mart fridge and I’ve been like, ‘F***ing hell – someone must have died in here!’
“There were a few milks in the fridge that were real and the smell was not good.”
Natalie started on the soap when she was just 12
