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It was back in August 2022 that former EastEnders star Samantha Womack revealed her shocking breast cancer diagnosis as part of an Instagram post marking the death of Grease star Olivia Newton-John. But she has revealed in a new interview that her deepest grief about that difficult year was not her own condition, but the sad death of her beloved rescue dog, Lola.

“She died on the same day as the Queen,” Samantha told The Times. “I was devastated. It was one of the worst days of my life. I’d just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and losing Lola was probably worse for me than the breast cancer diagnosis. It made everything seem real.”

It was in response to that heartbreak that Samantha left the UK for her home in the mountains of Valencia, in eastern Spain.

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There, Sam says she “really try to work on my body and get better,” adding that Lola’s death had changed the course of her life.

Animal lover Samantha marked the loss of her pet with an emotional post, writing: "My heart is broken. My soulmate Lola – cannot cope with losing you, not now,” prompting a huge outpouring of sympathy and support from friends and fans.

Samantha shares her home in Valencia with a veritable menagerie of animals, including two tiny 13-year-old chihuahuas, a five-year-old cavapoo, a Galgo Español – or Spanish greyhound – a Podenco, another quintessential Spanish breed, and a 14-year-old Yorkshire terrier.

Samantha told how she acquired the elderly Yorkie, who she calls Otto, when she was dropping off a donation of food at a rescue centre following the devastating Spanish floods of autumn 2024.

As one of the workers there began to ask her if she wanted to take one of the dogs home, Samantha pleaded for the woman to give her a break, insisting that she had five dogs at home.

“But I turned around and there was Otto, with six chickens in an overcrowded kennel that was flooded because water had come in and hadn’t been able to drain.

“Otto was shaking — he’s got arthritis and his little sore joints were submerged in water. He could barely see and he’s got the worst breath on the planet. I went, ‘Well, clearly that’s the dog for me!’”

Samantha’s despairing family accepted this latest addition to the household simply because the elderly dog only seemed to have a couple of years left, at best, but Samantha says she has “never seen a healthier dog in your life and he’s so happy.”

Samantha’s love of our animal friends doesn’t just extend to dogs. She once rescued a tiny muntjac deer that had been hit by a car and even hid two pigeons, which had apparently been mauled by a fox, in her BBC dressing room when she was working on EastEnders.

“I made a little box for them with newspapers at the bottom and hay on top so they could burrow underneath if they wanted to feel safe.”

Samantha fed the injured birds with fishing bait supplied by fellow actor Scott Maslen, who played Jack Branning – the somewhat shady boyfriend of her character Ronnie Mitchell.

She often kept her little chihuahuas in the dressing room, and whenever theatre regulations permit, she takes her pets to work: “When I did The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lola and Wally would keep me company in my dressing room,” she says. “I’d just been diagnosed with breast cancer, so having the dogs with me was such a comfort.”