Hollyoaks actress says she was "pitted against" female co-stars

Former Hollyoaks actress Sarah Jayne Dunn has opened up about her time on the Channel 4 soap and claims that she was "pitted against" her female co-stars.

While speaking to The Sun, Dunn said that the female cast members would get competitive when it came to shooting their yearly calendar photos. The calendars were stopped after 2012.

"You would get pitted against other girls, It would be like, 'You're not on the cover this year', or you would be feeling guilty because you were on the cover," she shared.

sarah jayne dunn as mandy richardson in hollyoaks

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"It is not a nice thing," the actress added. "And that's the great bit about platforms like OnlyFans – it takes that away. I have my subscribers and I'm not fighting against someone else, saying: 'Don't go to her, come over to me'. They want to follow me and that's great."

Hollyoaks did not respond to Digital Spy's request for comment.

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After posting content on OnlyFans last year, Dunn, who had played Mandy Richardson on Hollyoaks for more than 25 years, lost her job because the photos were "not in line with [Hollyoaks'] target audience".

Some fans protested the decision from TV bosses, calling them hypocrites because the cast photographs that used to be published in the aforementioned calendars were similar to the ones Dunn posts herself.

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Dunn has continued her OnlyFans career and recently defended herself against criticism that her underwear pictures are "damaging" to teenage girls.

Taking to her Instagram story earlier this week, she wrote: "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**kin waves whilst doing so.

"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."

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.