EastEnders star Patsy Palmer reveals confusion over her real name
The Bianca Jackson actress stunned This Morning’s hosts by revealing her real name is Julie.
EastEnders star Patsy Palmer has said she often confuses herself by using her real name, Julie, in America.
The actress, who rose to fame playing Bianca Jackson on the soap in the early 1990s, lives with her family in Malibu, where she said she is not recognised.
She told ITV’s This Morning: “They don’t know me and I have another name.
“My name is Julie really and so I thought ‘I’m going to get back to calling myself by my real name’, but I actually get so confused myself that sometimes I say Patsy and sometimes I say Julie…
“So now in Malibu they call me Patsy Julie.”
Palmer, 47, said her married name is Julie Merkell and that she was born Julie Anne Harris.
This Morning hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby were surprised to learn the soap star’s real name.
As Palmer said she has “so many names, and then Bianca”, Schofield joked: “How many names have you got?”
The actress added: “I’m on a mission to find out who I really am. And then sometimes I’m ginger and then sometimes a mum, and then a wife. I’m everything.
“Who am I? Tell me please, Phil, I’ve come back – I must go on Who Do You Think You Are?”
Palmer will soon return to EastEnders after a five-year break for a short stint.
She joined EastEnders in 1993 before leaving in 1999. Her character’s relationship with Sid Owen’s Ricky Butcher was a hit with fans and their on-screen wedding drew an audience of more than 22 million.
Palmer returned to the fictional London borough of Walford for a second EastEnders stint in 2008, before leaving again in 2014.
She moved to Malibu, California, with her husband, Richard Merkell, and their children several years ago.
