Sarah Jayne Dunn, who was fired from her long-running Hollyoaks role after posting photos to OnlyFans, has posted a passionate defense after receiving criticism for her underwear pictures.
Dunn played Mandy Richardson on the Channel 4 soap from 1996 to 2021 when she was sacked by producers for her OnlyFans content. The bosses said that her content on 18+ websites was "not in line with its target audience."
Dunn has continued her OnlyFans career but has drawn criticism for the somewhat explicit pictures she posts. An Instagram user left a comment writing that her content is "damaging" to teenage girls.
In now-expired Instagram Stories, Dunn posted in defense of her photos and said she "highly disagrees" with the critic.
"I woke up today to one comment, from a woman, on my most recent post. I don't normally respond but this one irked me. It was along the lines of 'you shouldn't post images in underwear because it's damaging to teenage girls,'" Dunn wrote, according to several outlets.
"Well, I highly disagree. I hope teenage girls do see my posts. I hope they see a confident, strong woman in her 40s (her prime in my opinion) who stood her ground, started using the word 'no' when she was unhappy with things in her life, and took back control."
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Dunn herself is a mother. She has son named Stanley, born in 2o16, with her husband Jonathan Smith. The actress' empowering post continued with a message about body positivity, which Dunn said her critics are against.
"A woman who is confident in her body, unedited images with skin texture, hairs, lines, skin folds, a woman who supports other women and who, as best she can, is trying to be an advocate and inspiration for other women to stand in their power, speak their truth and make huge f***in waves whilst doing so," Dunn wrote.
"What's damaging to teenage girls are unrealistic highly edited, manipulated filtered images, certain TV shows, misogyny, conditioning to be, feel, look, speak, perform a certain way."
Dunn then reshared photos of her in underwear before quoting Schitt's Creek character Moira Rose (Catherine O'Hara) in a plea to get women to be kinder to themselves about their bodies.
"In the words of the iconic Moira Rose: 'Then allow me to offer you some advice. Take a thousand n@ked pictures of yourself now. You may currently think, 'Oh, I'm too spooky,' or, 'Nobody wants to see these tiny b00bies'. But believe me, one day you will look at those photos, with much kinder eyes and say, 'Dear God, I was a beautiful thing!'"
Dunn has not appeared in any film or TV show since her Hollyoaks sacking, although she does have a role in the upcoming movie Darkheart Manor. At the time of her sacking, Hollyoaks fans protested the decision from the TV bosses, accusing them of being hypocritical after they formerly produced a series of calendars with the cast in similar photos to the ones Dunn posts herself.
Hollyoaks streams first on All 4, with new episodes dropping each weekday morning. The show airs Mondays to Fridays at 6.30pm on Channel 4, and at 7pm on E4.
Selected omnibus episodes are available via Amazon Prime Video.
Read more Hollyoaks spoilers on our dedicated homepage
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Jacob is a freelance writer who specialises in narrative TV and film.
He graduated from the University of Roehampton with an MA in Journalism and has written for several publications since, including Gold Derby, Insider, and Screen Daily.
Jacob has covered major events in the world of film and TV, including numerous BAFTA ceremonies and the Cannes Film Festival, while he's also been an awards expert for several publications, including Korea's Arirang. His particular areas of interest include Star Wars, the MCU, the Oscars, and Hugh Grant.
