Emmerdale star Natalie Ann Jamieson defends controversial schedule change amid soap cuts

Emmerdale star Natalie Ann Jamieson left the ITV soap in February when her character Amy Wyatt was brutally killed off in the limo lake crash that left several characters dead

Emmerdale star Natalie Ann Jamieson has revealed that cuts and major shake-ups ITV soaps "isn't a bad thing".

The soap star, 37, recently left Emmerdale after being killed off in a limo lake crash. She told the Mirror’s Notebook magazine in an exclusive chat about her future plans after playing Amy Wyatt for six years and the soap's upcoming schedule change.

In February, ITV announced that Coronation Street and Emmerdale would be moving to half-an-hour episodes every weekday, resulting in ITV soaps being cut by an hour. When asked about the change to one less hour of soaps per week, Natalie told The Mirror's Notebook: "I don’t understand when things are so popular why there are cutbacks on them,” she said.

“However, going back to half an hour episodes - I don’t think that’s a bad thing because that’s how I remember soaps being back in the day. I think that’s a return of what it was originally so it doesn’t feel like a cutback.”

Before Amy’s tragic death, Emmerdale viewers watched as she planned to adopt with husband Matty Barton. Natalie revealed that while she’s not ready for kids just yet with her partner of 15 years Ali Ward, they would go down the adoption route.

“We don’t have any particular plans to do anything like that. People get very worried about body clocks but we know that all of those routes are available - just like they were for Amy and Matty,” she said. “There are a lot of people where all they’ve ever wanted is to carry a child and to have a baby in their belly, but I don’t feel very strong about that. It’s a nice position to be in.”

Natalie also revealed that she won’t be marrying theatre school manager Ali anytime soon. “We’ve been together a long time but we just really like spending our money on holidays,” she said. “We’re not very traditional, we’re not into ceremonies and if we want to get married, we’ll probably just run off and do it somewhere.”

Emmerdale fans watched Natalie leave the soap in devastating scenes in February, with the soap icon suffering cardiac arrest after plunging into an icy lake during a limo crash. The actress admitted that she was initially stunned when told that Amy would be killed off on the soap. “They knew they had the stunt coming up so it worked out that this was going to be Amy’s exit and I didn’t know it was going to be a death at first.

“It’s really hard. Would you prefer for your character to die if you’re going, or to go in the back of a taxi? If it’s a taxi, you could potentially go back. That’s the most comfortable way.”

“The show said, ‘We just think Amy’s too big of a character to go in a taxi. We want to give her something big,’” she added, revealing that she ultimately decided that killing Amy off would be the better storyline.

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