Former Hollyoaks actress Sarah Jayne Dunn has responded after being told that her underwear snaps are 'damaging' to teenage girls. Sarah, who last year left the Channel Four soap to continue posting her racier images on the subscription site OnlyFans, known for its adult content, was messaged by a woman following her most recent post on Instagram.
The 40-year-old mum-of-one, from Leigh, has explained why she 'highly disagrees' with the critical message, saying she hopes teenage girls do see her posts and that she can inspire them to have body confidence and 'stand their ground.' She wrote on her Instagram Stories: "I woke up today to one comment, from a woman, on my most recent post. I don't normally respond but this one irked me. It was along the lines of 'you shouldn't post images in underwear because it's damaging to teenage girls.'"
Sarah, who has a six-year-old son Stanley with her husband Jonathan Smith, clapped back: "Well I highly disagree. I hope teenage girls do see my posts. I hope they see a confident, strong woman in her 40s (her prime in my opinion) who stood her ground, started using the word 'no' when she was unhappy with things in her life and took back control."
READ MORE:
She explained: "A woman who is confident in her body, unedited images with skin texture, hairs, lines, skin folds, a woman who supports other women and who, as best she can, is trying to be an advocate and inspiration for other women to stand in their power, speak their truth and make huge f***in waves whilst doing so."
Sarah, who played soap favourite Mandy Richardson on and off since 1996, continued: "What's damaging to teenage girls are unrealistic highly edited, manipulated filtered images, certain TV shows, misogyny, conditioning to be, feel, look, speak, perform a certain way."
And she vowed: "I will continue to talk openly about sex, female bodies, female autonomy, taboo subjects, empowerment and standing your ground. I will continue to practice self growth and self care."
Explaining why she was signing up to OnlyFans, she admitted at the time that 'some might find it shocking' but told her Instagram followers: 'I'm simply moving my sexier, racier images to another platform." And she penned on her Instagram: "I’ve done men’s mag upon men’s mag and calendar upon calendar, I’ve enjoyed every shoot but never felt like I had much say in them."
Later today (Saturday August 20) Sarah re-shared an image of herself wearing racy black and pink lingerie with a quote from the character Moira Rose from the sitcom Schitt's Creek after being informed that her Instagram post went against Instagram guidelines.
She posted against to censor the word 'naked' with an '@' symbol and 'boobies' with numbers. "Let’s try again because Instagram seems to have a problem with messages of body positivity," she said.
"In the words of the iconic Moira Rose: 'Then allow me to offer you some advice. Take a thousand n@ked pictures of yourself now. You may currently think, Oh, I'm too spooky or, Nobody wants to see these tiny b00bies. But believe me, one day you will look at those photos, with much kinder eyes and say, Dear God, I was a beautiful thing!'"
Sarah previously said leaving Hollyoaks to stay on OnlyFans was the 'best decision I ever made.' Sarah, who was one of the long-running soap's biggest stars, was unable to 'reach a resolution' with bosses.
A Hollyoaks spokeswoman said that as a 'youth-facing drama with many young viewers' the soap does not allow any Hollyoaks cast members 'to be active on certain 18+ websites.' They said the show had hoped she could remain in the role as mum Mandy but they 'respected' her choice to stay on OnlyFans.
n a new interview with Naked Beach star and body confidence advocate Jsky on his BBC Radio Manchester show, mum-of-one Sarah says she now feels 'more confident than I've ever felt' after 'taking back control.' And she said she would like return to acting after her role as Mandy Richardson in Hollyoaks saying "I never stopped being an actress."
She told broadcaster and reality TV star Jsky: "Now what I've found with what I've done in the past few months and taking back control, I feel more confident than I've ever felt. I think that's from going 'actually I'm going to own this and I'm going to do this my way.'"
A spokeswoman for the soap said previously: “Hollyoaks is a youth-facing drama with many young viewers, who follow our cast very closely, both in the soap and outside of it. We take our responsibility to our young audience very seriously and therefore the show does not allow any Hollyoaks cast members to be active on certain 18+ websites.
“We had hoped we could reach a resolution with Sarah that would allow her to remain in her role as Mandy, but we respect her choice to continue to produce content on OnlyFans. In the past four years since her return to the show her legacy character has been an integral part of some our most important storylines and we will be very sad to see her go.”
READ NEXT:
