How did Ronnie and Roxy die in EastEnders? The exit fans still haven't forgiven
New Year's Day 2017 remains one of the most contested dates in EastEnders history. Two of Walford's most popular characters left the Square that night — permanently, brutally, and in a way a chunk of the audience has never accepted.
Here's what happened on screen, and the messier story behind it.
The deaths themselves
Ronnie Mitchell (Samantha Womack) had just married Jack Branning. On the wedding night, her sister Roxy (Rita Simons) — who'd been spiralling through drink and drugs for weeks, taking cocaine the night before the wedding — persuaded her up to the hotel rooftop pool. Each sister drank a bottle of champagne. Roxy jumped in first and never surfaced, the implication being that the drugs triggered a fatal episode in the water.
Ronnie, still in her wedding dress and veil, jumped in to save her. The dress dragged her down. Both sisters drowned — Ronnie sinking beside the sister she couldn't rescue.
Why they were killed off
Neither actress chose to go. The decision came from Sean O'Connor, the executive producer who'd taken over in 2016 and wanted a dramatic reset. He defended it to the Royal Television Society in 2017:
"We wanted to give them an operatic ending," O'Connor said, arguing the sisters were never the type to leave in the back of a taxi.
Womack later called the loss of the characters a "huge blow" in an interview with OK! Magazine, and Barbara Windsor — Peggy Mitchell herself — told The Sun in 2016 the decision was "a mistake" made over the actresses' heads.
Simons, for her part, tweeted after leaving: "is ANYONE mourning Roxy on the square? Poor cow."
The fallout
Viewers boycotted, petitions circulated, and O'Connor's tenure didn't survive the year — he left the soap in mid-2017 amid a ratings slump, with even Womack expressing sympathy for him on his way out. The sisters, who'd arrived together in 2007, had been written out in a way no future producer could undo.
Could they ever come back?
Here's the thing fans cling to: neither body was ever shown. Simons returned briefly in 2023 as a vision of Roxy during her daughter Amy's therapy session, and when asked afterwards about a fuller return, she pointedly refused to rule anything out. Soap deaths have been reversed on flimsier grounds.