Lisa Riley, who has played larger-than-life soap icon Mandy Dingle on Emmerdale for almost 30 years, has opened up in an exclusive chat with OK! about the death of Robin Windsor – and the toll that loss has taken on her mental health.
The star, 48. who is an ambassador for Breast Cancer Now, with whom she has recorded a moving podcast, lost her Strictly Come Dancing pro partner and best friend, Robin, who was found dead in a London hotel on 18th February 2024 – and for the first time, reveals her mental health struggles led her to having therapy, to cope with her grief.
Opening up about his untimely death at the age of just 44, she said, “I lost my best friend. I’m so lucky with our dressing room crew at work. Without those girls, some days, I wouldn’t be able to carry on. I put the wig on, the make-up and the costume and be funny, but my heart’s hurting. My husband-to-be Al has been amazing, but yes, I lost my gay best friend. He and I were Velcro together.”
Asked how she is coping now, just over one year on she admits, “I’d never had therapy since losing my mum in 2012. However, with Robin, I had to start having therapy. It really does work. I lost mum, then Robin, and two and half months after Robin we lost my aunt suddenly when she was on holiday. She died having dinner. It was awful.”
She admits that, looking back now, she wonders if she should have taken some more time off work after Robin’s shock passing – but knows that throwing herself into the job she loves is the way that works for her. “I put Mandy Dingle’s lashes on and kept going – that’s exactly what I did with my mum. That was my coping mechanism.”
Heartbroken Lisa was one of the many celebrities to pay tribute to the dancing star when the shock news broke last year. Writing in an emotional post in Instagram, she penned: “My bestie, my robin, my angel … now our forever angel, who is loved, will always be loved, forever in my heart … my very broken heart.”
Speaking last June, as she presented the Posthumous Award at the British LGBT Awards to Windsor’s family on his behalf, she said in his tribute: “I wish he was here, he should be on my arm covered in sparkles and having a ball, but the energy he had is imprinted on my heart.
“He would be shining down and laughing at us. His vibrancy, energy, and zest for life was out there for everyone to see. He wasn’t a hidden gay man, he was a proud, proud gay man.”
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