Chelsea Fox
Encyclopedia
Chelsea Fox is a fictional character
from the BBC
soap opera
EastEnders
, played by Tiana Benjamin
. She first appeared on 5 May 2006 and was joined by her mother Denise
and her half sister Libby
. Benjamin announced her departure from the show in April 2010. Her final episode was broadcast on 5 August 2010.
, unaware he is dating her to make Jane Collins jealous. Grant sleeps with Chelsea but Denise finds out and Grant ends the relationship. Chelsea finds employment at Tanya Branning
's salon, Booty and dates Sean Slater
, but takes the relationship more seriously as he continues pursuing other women, including Tanya and Carly Wicks
. Trying to keep Sean away from Carly, Chelsea sets her up on a date with Warren Stamp, who tries assaulting Carly. Sean rescues her and animosity between the girls escalates, particularly when Sean dumps Chelsea for Carly. Carly's brother, Deano
, is attracted to Chelsea so she seduces him into helping her sabotage Carly and Sean's relationship. When Patrick Trueman
is attacked, Chelsea and Deano frame Sean, stealing CCTV
evidence that clears Sean but Carly finds it and gives it to the police. They release Sean and charge Chelsea and Deano with perverting the course of justice
. Sean gets revenge by cutting Chelsea's hair while she sleeps. She and Deano are sentenced to six months imprisonment and released after three.
Helped by her sister, Libby, Chelsea traces her father, Lucas Johnson
, who left her and Denise 20 years ago. She confronts him, revealing that she is his daughter but leaves before he responds. Two months later, Lucas appears. Chelsea is reluctant to see him but eventually agrees to go out for a birthday meal. However, she leaves on discovering that she has a half-brother, Jordan.
She buys drugs from Sean and steals money from work to buy more but gets beaten up by a group of girls. Tanya fires her and Patrick catches her taking cocaine
. He locks her in her room and calls Lucas to help. When he arrives, Chelsea has escaped through the bedroom window. Lucas finds her in R&R nightclub, high on cocaine, and takes her home. Chelsea gets her job back at Booty. She meets Theo Kelly, and they start a relationship but feels that she does not fit in with his university friends, cheating on him with a footballer named Ellis Prince, who offers her drugs. Chelsea tells Theo about her one-night stand
, and he forgives her, saying everyone makes mistakes but she insists they are wrong for each other, dating Ellis instead. Lucas finds the drugs Ellis gave her and confronts Chelsea. She leaves with Ellis, leaving a note for her family but returns on Libby's birthday, demanding to know why Libby's grandmother, Liz Turner is in Albert Square, forcing her to admit she has been visiting her father, Owen Turner
, in prison and is glad that he is going to be released. Chelsea is cautious of her family's safety when Owen returns to the Square, and pleads with him not to bring up the suspicious death of Lucas's ex-wife Trina Johnson again as Denise was a suspect and could get in trouble.
Chelsea and Roxy Mitchell
both pursue Doctor Al Jenkins
, becoming rivals as the doctor is dating them both without telling the other. Chelsea assists Jordan in his protest to get a tree planted in Trina's memory and wins Al over. However, just before Chelsea and Al get together, Roxy turns up at his office dressed as a nurse, to which Chelsea storms out in embarrassment. Despite this, when Roxy inherits The Queen Victoria
public house, she employs Chelsea as a barmaid. Denise sets Chelsea up on a blind date with an associate of Lucas's called Matthew, but Chelsea does not enjoy the date and tells Jack Branning
she wants to leave. While she is in the toilet, Jack tells Matthew that Chelsea has a boyfriend, causing him to leave. Chelsea and Jack then begin a relationship, and Chelsea starts working at the salon again, now named Roxy's. When Jack is shot and hospitalised, Chelsea declares her love for him. However, Jack ends the relationship. Later, Chelsea and her colleague Amira Masood worry that they are both pregnant, and take pregnancy tests. It turns out that Amira is not pregnant but Chelsea is. She wants to keep the baby but changes her mind about telling Jack as it would not change anything, however, she does not want to be a single mother. After Denise sees Chelsea crying and then spending time with Zainab Masood
's baby Kamil, she tells Libby she thinks Chelsea is pregnant. Chelsea admits the truth, and Denise has a heart-to-heart with her, which Lucas joins in later. She takes the test again, finds out that she is not pregnant, and tells both her parents that she'll make her own decisions. She tells Amira that Amira's pregnancy test was positive and promises to keep it a secret for her when she leaves Walford after finding out that her husband Syed
is gay.
Chelsea goes on to celebrate her birthday and discovers Denise has put a picture of Chelsea on the newspaper wearing a cowboy suit. Much to Chelsea's embarrassment she decides to buy all the newspaper so people will not continue to mock her. When Roxy discovers it is Chelsea's birthday she decides to throw her a western themed birthday. Chelsea starts to fall for the DJ but Roxy is caught kissing him.
When Owen's body is discovered buried under the Square, Denise is taken for questioning. Chelsea thinks that Denise may have killed both Trina and Owen as Lucas had told her that Denise was hiding Trina's bracelet in her bag. Chelsea tells Libby about the bracelet, and after Denise is released without charge, they see her driving away from the Square alone, and then they receive a text message from her saying "I'm sorry", though in reality, Lucas had killed Owen and confessed to Denise, taken her to a canal and strangled her, sending the text message before throwing the phone in the canal. The police tell the family that Denise's car has been found by the canal, before a body is pulled from the water along with Denise's mobile phone. Chelsea wonders who her mother really is and says it makes her some kind of monster. She offers to go with Lucas to identify the body, but she is unable to go in so goes in alone and identifies it as Denise's, leaving Chelsea devastated. Chelsea believes that her mother killed Owen and then herself. After Denise's funeral, Chelsea and Libby agree to start packing up Denise's belongings. While celebrating Libby's birthday, Denise walks in, revealing that she is not dead but that Lucas has been keeping her prisoner, and that he was the one who killed Trina and Owen. Chelsea tells her to stay away from her, saying she is a murderer. Lucas enteres and confirms that Denise is telling the truth but Chelsea says he is covering up for her and she faked her own death. However, Lucas takes the family hostage, but when Jordan arrives, they escape and Lucas is arrested.
Chelsea says she no longer has a normal family, and argues with Libby over their parents. After speaking to Liz, Chelsea decides she wants to move to Spain with her, as people in Walford will only ever think of her as the daughter of a murderer. Denise initially argues with Chelsea about this, but then agrees, encouraging Libby to go with Chelsea for a holiday before she returns to university. After leaving drinks in The Queen Victoria pub, Chelsea, Libby and Liz leave Walford in the back of a taxi.
In November 2011, Amira states that Chelsea is living in Málaga
, Spain
.
and Belinda Owusu
respectively) completing the clan. The role was cast to Tiana Benjamin, who was 21 at the time. Benjamin has revealed that she was the second Fox to be cast, and on her final audition, she had a workshop and met Diane Parish there. Owusu was cast at a later date. Of her casting, Benjamin said "I've been a big fan of EastEnders since I was little and I'm very excited to join the show. I've always really admired Diane [Parish] and I can't wait to work with her - it really hasn't sunk in yet! [...] It's one of those jobs that's unlike any other. There's a lot that changes when you take on something as big as EastEnders. I [am] really happy and genuinely excited to be a part of the show." She added that the three actors who play the Fox family have a bond, commenting "We all respect and understand each other, and manage to have a good time while we're filming too. I felt that we clicked from our first few scenes together." Benjamin quit her role as Angelina Johnson in the successful Harry Potter
film series, in order to take the part. Chelsea made her first screen appearance in May 2006 and was the first of the Fox family to be seen by viewers.
On 2 April 2010 it was announced that Benjamin had chosen to leave the show to pursue other projects. Of her decision, she said "I have had an amazing time at EastEnders and this has been a very difficult decision for me to make but now seems like the right time to move on and leave Chelsea behind even through she's been such a fantastic character to play." Her final episode was broadcast on 5 August 2010.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
from the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
, played by Tiana Benjamin
Tiana Benjamin
Tiana Opium Benjamin is a British actress best known for playing Chelsea Fox in the long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders.Benjamin trained at The Anna Scher Theatre School in London....
. She first appeared on 5 May 2006 and was joined by her mother Denise
Denise Fox
Denise Celeste Fox is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Diane Parish. She made her first appearance on 11 May 2006. Parish temporarily left EastEnders in early 2008 to give birth to her second child...
and her half sister Libby
Libby Fox
Elizabeth "Libby" Fox is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera, EastEnders, played by Belinda Owusu. She made her first appearance on 22 May 2006 and left in 2010. She is the daughter of Denise Fox and Owen Turner, and half sister of Chelsea Fox. The Fox family were introduced by executive...
. Benjamin announced her departure from the show in April 2010. Her final episode was broadcast on 5 August 2010.
Storylines
Upon Chelsea's arrival, she dates Grant MitchellGrant Mitchell (EastEnders)
Grant Anthony Mitchell is a fictional character from the British soap opera EastEnders, played by Ross Kemp. Grant first appeared in 1990, introduced by producer Michael Ferguson to revamp the show. Kemp remained until 1999 when he opted to leave...
, unaware he is dating her to make Jane Collins jealous. Grant sleeps with Chelsea but Denise finds out and Grant ends the relationship. Chelsea finds employment at Tanya Branning
Tanya Branning
Tanya Lauren Jessop is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Jo Joyner. She made her first appearance on 27 June 2006. She left the show temporarily on 25 December 2009 for maternity leave and returned for one episode on 23 June 2010. She made her full-time return on...
's salon, Booty and dates Sean Slater
Sean Slater
Sean Slater is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Robert Kazinsky. Sean left the Square temporarily on 27 March 2007, as Kazinsky was suspended from work for two months. He returned on 28 May 2007...
, but takes the relationship more seriously as he continues pursuing other women, including Tanya and Carly Wicks
Carly Wicks
Carly Wicks is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Kellie Shirley, and by Michaela Stephen in a home movie the Wickses watched on 23 April 2007. She made her first appearance on 17 February 2006. Carly was axed from the serial after Phil Daniels quit. Carly is...
. Trying to keep Sean away from Carly, Chelsea sets her up on a date with Warren Stamp, who tries assaulting Carly. Sean rescues her and animosity between the girls escalates, particularly when Sean dumps Chelsea for Carly. Carly's brother, Deano
Deano Wicks
Dean "Deano" Wicks is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders played by Matt Di Angelo. He made his first appearance on 2 January 2006. It was announced on 18 August 2007 that the characters of Deano and his sister Carly were being axed by executive producer Diederick Santer...
, is attracted to Chelsea so she seduces him into helping her sabotage Carly and Sean's relationship. When Patrick Trueman
Patrick Trueman
Patrick Neville Loftus Alfonso Trueman is a fictional character from the popular British BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Rudolph Walker. He made his first appearance on 13 September 2001.-Backstory:...
is attacked, Chelsea and Deano frame Sean, stealing CCTV
Closed-circuit television
Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....
evidence that clears Sean but Carly finds it and gives it to the police. They release Sean and charge Chelsea and Deano with perverting the course of justice
Perverting the course of justice
Perverting the course of justice, in English, Canadian , and Irish law, is a criminal offence in which someone prevents justice from being served on himself or on another party...
. Sean gets revenge by cutting Chelsea's hair while she sleeps. She and Deano are sentenced to six months imprisonment and released after three.
Helped by her sister, Libby, Chelsea traces her father, Lucas Johnson
Lucas Johnson
Lucas Aaron Johnson is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Don Gilet. He made his first on-screen appearance on 3 April 2008. Lucas is introduced as a preacher and estranged father of established character Chelsea Fox. He has a son, Jordan, and goes on to marry...
, who left her and Denise 20 years ago. She confronts him, revealing that she is his daughter but leaves before he responds. Two months later, Lucas appears. Chelsea is reluctant to see him but eventually agrees to go out for a birthday meal. However, she leaves on discovering that she has a half-brother, Jordan.
She buys drugs from Sean and steals money from work to buy more but gets beaten up by a group of girls. Tanya fires her and Patrick catches her taking cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
. He locks her in her room and calls Lucas to help. When he arrives, Chelsea has escaped through the bedroom window. Lucas finds her in R&R nightclub, high on cocaine, and takes her home. Chelsea gets her job back at Booty. She meets Theo Kelly, and they start a relationship but feels that she does not fit in with his university friends, cheating on him with a footballer named Ellis Prince, who offers her drugs. Chelsea tells Theo about her one-night stand
One-night stand
Originally, a one-night stand was a single theatre performance, usually by a guest performer on tour, as opposed to an ongoing engagement. Today, however, the term is more commonly defined as a single sexual encounter, in which neither participant has any intention or expectation of a relationship...
, and he forgives her, saying everyone makes mistakes but she insists they are wrong for each other, dating Ellis instead. Lucas finds the drugs Ellis gave her and confronts Chelsea. She leaves with Ellis, leaving a note for her family but returns on Libby's birthday, demanding to know why Libby's grandmother, Liz Turner is in Albert Square, forcing her to admit she has been visiting her father, Owen Turner
Owen Turner
Owen Turner is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Lee Ross. He originally appeared in the show in 2006, and then returned in 2009. His character left in 2009 after being murdered by Lucas Johnson.-Storylines:...
, in prison and is glad that he is going to be released. Chelsea is cautious of her family's safety when Owen returns to the Square, and pleads with him not to bring up the suspicious death of Lucas's ex-wife Trina Johnson again as Denise was a suspect and could get in trouble.
Chelsea and Roxy Mitchell
Roxy Mitchell
Roxanne Lizette "Roxy" Mitchell is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, portrayed by Rita Simons. Roxy arrived in Walford with her sister Ronnie on 24 July 2007 and decided to move permanently to Walford from Ibiza where they ran a bar together. Roxy is the younger of the two...
both pursue Doctor Al Jenkins
Al Jenkins
Doctor Albert "Al" Jenkins is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Adam Croasdell. It was announced on 26 November 2009 that the character would leave the soap in early 2010. His final appearance was on 4 February 2010....
, becoming rivals as the doctor is dating them both without telling the other. Chelsea assists Jordan in his protest to get a tree planted in Trina's memory and wins Al over. However, just before Chelsea and Al get together, Roxy turns up at his office dressed as a nurse, to which Chelsea storms out in embarrassment. Despite this, when Roxy inherits The Queen Victoria
The Queen Victoria
The Queen Victoria is a fictional Victorian public house in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders. It has the fictional address of 46 Albert Square, Walford, London E20.-Appearance and development:...
public house, she employs Chelsea as a barmaid. Denise sets Chelsea up on a blind date with an associate of Lucas's called Matthew, but Chelsea does not enjoy the date and tells Jack Branning
Jack Branning
Jack Branning is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Scott Maslen. He made his first appearance on 29 October 2007. He is the youngest child of Jim and Reenie Branning and the brother of April Branning, Carol Jackson, Derek Branning, Suzy Branning and Max Branning...
she wants to leave. While she is in the toilet, Jack tells Matthew that Chelsea has a boyfriend, causing him to leave. Chelsea and Jack then begin a relationship, and Chelsea starts working at the salon again, now named Roxy's. When Jack is shot and hospitalised, Chelsea declares her love for him. However, Jack ends the relationship. Later, Chelsea and her colleague Amira Masood worry that they are both pregnant, and take pregnancy tests. It turns out that Amira is not pregnant but Chelsea is. She wants to keep the baby but changes her mind about telling Jack as it would not change anything, however, she does not want to be a single mother. After Denise sees Chelsea crying and then spending time with Zainab Masood
Zainab Masood
Zainab Masood is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by comedienne Nina Wadia. She made her first appearance on 16 July 2007.-Backstory:...
's baby Kamil, she tells Libby she thinks Chelsea is pregnant. Chelsea admits the truth, and Denise has a heart-to-heart with her, which Lucas joins in later. She takes the test again, finds out that she is not pregnant, and tells both her parents that she'll make her own decisions. She tells Amira that Amira's pregnancy test was positive and promises to keep it a secret for her when she leaves Walford after finding out that her husband Syed
Syed Masood
Syed Masood is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Marc Elliott, and first appeared on screen on 21 April 2009. Syed is the eldest son of Masood Ahmed and Zainab Masood , and brother of Tamwar and Shabnam and Kamil Masood...
is gay.
Chelsea goes on to celebrate her birthday and discovers Denise has put a picture of Chelsea on the newspaper wearing a cowboy suit. Much to Chelsea's embarrassment she decides to buy all the newspaper so people will not continue to mock her. When Roxy discovers it is Chelsea's birthday she decides to throw her a western themed birthday. Chelsea starts to fall for the DJ but Roxy is caught kissing him.
When Owen's body is discovered buried under the Square, Denise is taken for questioning. Chelsea thinks that Denise may have killed both Trina and Owen as Lucas had told her that Denise was hiding Trina's bracelet in her bag. Chelsea tells Libby about the bracelet, and after Denise is released without charge, they see her driving away from the Square alone, and then they receive a text message from her saying "I'm sorry", though in reality, Lucas had killed Owen and confessed to Denise, taken her to a canal and strangled her, sending the text message before throwing the phone in the canal. The police tell the family that Denise's car has been found by the canal, before a body is pulled from the water along with Denise's mobile phone. Chelsea wonders who her mother really is and says it makes her some kind of monster. She offers to go with Lucas to identify the body, but she is unable to go in so goes in alone and identifies it as Denise's, leaving Chelsea devastated. Chelsea believes that her mother killed Owen and then herself. After Denise's funeral, Chelsea and Libby agree to start packing up Denise's belongings. While celebrating Libby's birthday, Denise walks in, revealing that she is not dead but that Lucas has been keeping her prisoner, and that he was the one who killed Trina and Owen. Chelsea tells her to stay away from her, saying she is a murderer. Lucas enteres and confirms that Denise is telling the truth but Chelsea says he is covering up for her and she faked her own death. However, Lucas takes the family hostage, but when Jordan arrives, they escape and Lucas is arrested.
Chelsea says she no longer has a normal family, and argues with Libby over their parents. After speaking to Liz, Chelsea decides she wants to move to Spain with her, as people in Walford will only ever think of her as the daughter of a murderer. Denise initially argues with Chelsea about this, but then agrees, encouraging Libby to go with Chelsea for a holiday before she returns to university. After leaving drinks in The Queen Victoria pub, Chelsea, Libby and Liz leave Walford in the back of a taxi.
In November 2011, Amira states that Chelsea is living in Málaga
Málaga
Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
Creation and development
On 12 January 2006, an official BBC press report announced the introduction of a new character to EastEnders, Chelsea Fox. Chelsea was due to be part of a new, all female family joining the show, with Chelsea's mother Denise and her sister Libby (played by Diane ParishDiane Parish
Diane Parish is a British actress best known for her role as Denise Johnson in the BBC Soap EastEnders and DC Eva Sharpe in The Bill.-Career:...
and Belinda Owusu
Belinda Owusu
Belinda Ruth Owusu is a British actress, who rose to prominence in 2006, aged 17, when she won the role of Libby Fox in BBC's EastEnders.-Career:...
respectively) completing the clan. The role was cast to Tiana Benjamin, who was 21 at the time. Benjamin has revealed that she was the second Fox to be cast, and on her final audition, she had a workshop and met Diane Parish there. Owusu was cast at a later date. Of her casting, Benjamin said "I've been a big fan of EastEnders since I was little and I'm very excited to join the show. I've always really admired Diane [Parish] and I can't wait to work with her - it really hasn't sunk in yet! [...] It's one of those jobs that's unlike any other. There's a lot that changes when you take on something as big as EastEnders. I [am] really happy and genuinely excited to be a part of the show." She added that the three actors who play the Fox family have a bond, commenting "We all respect and understand each other, and manage to have a good time while we're filming too. I felt that we clicked from our first few scenes together." Benjamin quit her role as Angelina Johnson in the successful Harry Potter
Harry Potter (film series)
The Harry Potter film series is a British-American film series based on the Harry Potter novels by the British author J. K. Rowling...
film series, in order to take the part. Chelsea made her first screen appearance in May 2006 and was the first of the Fox family to be seen by viewers.
On 2 April 2010 it was announced that Benjamin had chosen to leave the show to pursue other projects. Of her decision, she said "I have had an amazing time at EastEnders and this has been a very difficult decision for me to make but now seems like the right time to move on and leave Chelsea behind even through she's been such a fantastic character to play." Her final episode was broadcast on 5 August 2010.
External links
- Profile of Chelsea Fox What's on TV