Rachel Adedeji has found it "hard" saying goodbye to her ‘Hollyoaks’ family.
The 27-year-old actress – who plays Lisa Loveday on the soap – is feeling "quite sad" after Jacqueline Boatswain, Karl Collins and Duayne Boachie bowed out of the show as her on-screen parents Simone and Louis and brother Zack earlier this week.
She said: "I’m quite sad, I’m not going to lie. It has been quite a hard thing to do – to say goodbye to them."
Rachel joined the soap some time after her on-screen family as Lisa had been missing since childhood and the former ‘X Factor’ star will always be grateful to her former co-stars for "mentoring" her in the early days on set.
She added to Digital Spy: "When I first started ‘Hollyoaks’, they had already been there, so they took me under their wing and sort of mentored me.
"We’ve grown together as a family, so it’s been quite difficult."
However, the actress – who took a break from the soap last year after she and husband Jason Finegan welcomed daughter Lillian, now 13 months, into the world – is pleased her friends have made the decisions they wanted to.
She added: "But equally, I am happy for them as I want them to continue doing what they love doing."
Louis was shockingly killed off by ‘bad dad’ slayer Breda McQueen (Moya Brady) – who has covered up his death by texting from his phone – after being kept hostage at her pig farm for weeks.
Simone decided to leave the village to explore her roots in Jamaica after being left heartbroken when Louis called and, forced by Breda, lied and said he wasn’t interested in trying to rebuild their marriage, while Zack made a spontaneous decision to fly to Paris after Holly Cunningham (Amanda Clapham) confessed her love for him.
Rachel Adedeji’s tough goodbye
