EastEnders fans gutted as character's return scrapped days after announcement

There was some upsetting news for EastEnders fans and characters on the BBC soap on Monday night. A planned return was scrapped by the character in question at the last minute.

Spoilers released just days ago announced Lily Slaterwould be returning to Walford after weeks away from the show. She is currently staying with her father Ryan Malloy and her baby daughter Charli.

But after an incident involving her mother Stacey Slater this week, her return was dropped as she declared she would not be back that evening as planned. It comes after teenJoel Marshall took a vile revenge on Stacey after she put him in his place in a recent episode over his vile language towards and about women.

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Stacey was alarmed in the latest episode when she learned someone had leaked imaged and videos from her SecretCam site. Fans of the soap will recall Stacey uploaded content to the adult site last year, and she soon faced a horror ordeal at the hands of stalker Theo.

We saw Joel learn this information last week and he soon found Stacey's profile. So when her content was leaked and made public this week, Stacey wasted no time in confronting Joel knowing he was likely to blame.

Fans were convinced it was Joel too, believing he did it after Stacey slapped him and called him out over his comments. Joel was shown smirking as multiple characters kept staring at Stacey, but she didn't know why until later on.

Stacey was mortified about the leak and confronted Joel, but things got worse when she received a phone call from daughter Lily. Lily cancelled her return to Walford immediately after finding out what had happened with the cam images and videos.

Lily told Stacey that all her friends were talking about the videos, leaving her too ashamed to show her face. With that she declared her Walford return was off, with the comeback scrapped - with no details on when she would actually return.

It had not stated in spoilers that this planned comeback would not go ahead, and spoilers appeared to suggest Lily would be back this week. But now fans are fearing the character may not return at all, as some wondered why the spoilers stated a comeback was definitely happening.

Taking to social media, one fan said: "So wait is Lily not coming back this week after all? Nooo." Another fan commented: "I hope it's not too long before Lily comes back to Walford. I also hope they haven't recast her."

A third worried fan said: "I thought she was meant to be back, I hope she's not leaving." Another comment read: "I think Lilly ain’t coming back."

The reactions continued with another post reading: "I was excited to see Stacey and co finally on track waaaa :( wonder what's happening, isn't Stacey meant to be taking a break soon?" Sharing their confusion another fan said: "I’m so confused," wit another fan writing: "It could just be one of those spoilers that doesn’t play out the way we think it does."

EastEnders airs Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , and Threads.