CBeebies star Sarah-Jane Honeywell has admitted she got “shocked” out of ‘jumping in front of a train’ following her axing over a PETA campaign image.
The star got fired from her job in children’s TV after she posed semi-naked as part of a PETA campaign in 2011.
Sarah-Jane has opened up about her struggles after leaving Cbeebies and admitted she felt she had “let everyone down”.
Sarah-Jane Honeywell on PETA campaign
She told The Sun’s Fabulous: “I felt like I’d let my husband down. I’d let my parents down. I’d let everybody down.
“I walked to the train station in Liverpool and, I hadn’t thought I was going to kill or hurt myself, but it was like a compulsion. It was like, ‘I need to jump’. And then I remember my little boy kicking and that shocked me out of it.”
She also said: “I just felt like my life was over. Cancel culture is really dangerous and I think people forget that human beings are behind those celebrity personas. People can make mistakes.”
Sarah-Jane landed her first hosting job on Cbeebies in 2001, aged 29. She said she started on Tikkabilla and then did a spin-off show of Higgledy House.
The TV star also said she kept serious health ailments from her colleagues out of fear of becoming sacked. She said she had been on Prozac “for much of my life after developing an eating disorder aged 12”.
She also decided it was “best to lie” when she was asked during her medical at the BBC if she had “ever been on illegal drugs or antidepressants”.
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What else did Sarah-Jane speak about?
Sarah-Jane said from the age of “about 24 to 26” she had “dabbled in cocaine and pills”. However, she insisted she was “completely sober” from 2000 onwards.
In October 2011, Sarah-Jane was offered the chance to star in the PETA campaign. She claimed she was told she could “wear a bra and pants”. However, when she got in the position for the pictures to be taken, she was reportedly asked to “take my bra off because it’d get loads more news coverage”.
Sarah-Jane said she agreed as it would help “a good cause” and she “didn’t really see what was wrong with it” as they were “just boobs and they were covered with my hands”.
Sarah-Jane said she felt a “shift” when the photo hit the papers. She claims she “never heard from my former colleagues again”.
The star said she then found out in the papers that she “no longer worked” at the BBC, admitting that was “a shock”.
Elisa Allen, PETA’s Vice President of Programmes, said: “Bless Sarah Jane for stripping for such a provocative protest to challenge people to consider who is on their plate and encourage them not to pay someone to kill an animal who didn’t want to die, but – if reports are true – how wretched and prudish of her employer to strip her of her livelihood. We tip our hats to kind people like her who use their voice and sometimes – like Lady Godiva – their bodies to make powerful statements against exploitation.”
ED! has contacted the BBC for comment.
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