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Barbara Windsor’s husband has revealed he has found love again after his late wife's passing.
Scott Mitchell had been married to the Eastenders star for 27 years and has only recently begun a new relationship with Tanya Franks - who also starred on the iconic soap.
And in a candid interview, Mitchell insisted that his late wife would be ‘really happy’ for him.
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Windsor, who passed away in 2020, just seven years after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.
Towards the end of her life, she had been living in a care home and spent her final days with her beloved husband.
In a heartbreaking statement, Mitchell said: “Barbara's final weeks were typical of how she lived her life - full of humour, drama and a fighting spirit until the end.”
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He added: “I will always be immensely proud of Barbara's courage, dignity and generosity dealing with her own illness and still trying to help others by raising awareness for as long as she could.”
Appearing on Lorraine earlier this week, the 60-year-old spoke about Windsor and revealed what she would have thought of his new relationship with Tanya.
He told Lorraine Kelly: “Barbara will always hold an incredibly special part of my heart and my life.
“It’s half my life I was with her. She was an incredible lady, but me being miserable now or alone isn’t going to bring her back and she wouldn’t want that.
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"I know the one person who would be really happy for me is Barbara Windsor.”
He then went on to explain how the Carry On actor wanted him to be happy after she passed on.
“She was a generous lady, a generous spirit,” Mitchell said, adding:” She always used to say, ‘I’ll go first, be upset, be heartbroken but once you’re through that, please live your best life’.”
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Working as an ambassador for Alzheimer's Research UK and setting up the Babs’ Army Charity in the years that followed, the widower hadn’t intended to begin a new relationship.
Despite this, his ‘incredible friendship’ with Tanya soon developed into something more, with the actor being extremely supportive of his charity work.
“She’s incredibly supportive of the work I do for the campaigning, so there is no fear there or worry of oh, ‘it’s about my late wife’,” he said.
“She knows what it’s all about so thank goodness, life feels really good.”
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In another interview on This Morning, he explained how they'd met during a marathon and joked that the two women couldn't be 'more opposite'.
Topics: Eastenders, Celebrity, TV And Film, Sex and Relationships
Katherine Sidnell