SIMONE DOES A RUNNER; SCOTS STUNNER SETS SIGHTS ON FILM CAREER.

Sunday Mail
(Glasgow, Scotland)

March 18, 2001
 

Byline: BRENDAN McGINTY

TV Bad Girl Simone Lahbib has quit the popular prison drama just days before the launch of a new series.
Scots beauty Simone, 30, who plays prison boss Helen Stewart, plans to concentrate on her film career.
The news will stun the show's millions of viewers, who have bombarded Bad Girls' stars with mountains of fan mail.

In the new series, which starts on ITV on Tuesday, Stirling-born Simone is at the centre of the action.
The cliffhanger which ended the last series, when Helen's lesbian inmate lover escapes from jail and begs the former governor to run off with her, is finally resolved.

The team behind the smash-hit show are already planning a fourth series, but they will have to cope without one of their main stars.

Simone, who won a national TV award for her Bad Girls role, said: "There is more for me in the new series.

"But eventually things do come to a natural conclusion and I have decided that this will be my last series.

"At the moment, I am really busy and everyone's excited about the new series so I haven't really told everyone yet.

"I am just about to travel out to promote Bad Girls in South Africa so I'm only thinking about that in the near future." Simone, who now lives in South London, has also starred in Channel 4's The Young Person's Guide To Becoming a Rock Star and Thief Takers on ITV.

But she's best-known for Bad Girls and her sizzling on-screen affair with Nikki Wade, played by Mandana Jones.

The pair were filmed kissing and they became instant gay icons and were mobbed by fans delighted to see two attractive lesbian characters on TV.

Simone said: "The interest from the fans has been amazing, but very intense at times. I have been experiencing that all over again as the show has started to go out in places such as New Zealand.

"Because the show is made by women and its stars are all women it has a huge female fan base - not all of them gay either."

The new series of Bad Girls, which is set in the fictional women's prison Larkhall, promises plenty of twists and turns - but the entire cast have been ordered to stay tight-lipped on new plotlines.

But news of a fresh romance for Helen Stewart has leaked out - and the big shock is it could be a man, leaving her unsure of her sexuality.

There are no such dilemmas for Simone in real life, though. She is engaged to her long-term boyfriend, a fellow actor whom she steadfastly refuses to name.

But she insists they are not planning to tie the knot in the immediate future - for Simone work comes first for the time being.

Her real ambitions lie on the big screen after the success of Long Haul, a short film which she starred in last year.

Work has finished on a second short movie, which was written by a friend but it has not reached the cinema screens yet.

Simone has admitted she'd love to work with the cream of Britain's film- making talent - big-name directors such as Peter Mullan, Mike Leigh and Billy Elliot's Stephen Daldry.

Her gritty role in Long Haul was the latest in a long line of parts in which saucy Simone has stripped for the cameras.

She also bared all in a stage production of Lady Chatterley's Lover as well as her two earlier TV shows, Thief Takers and Young Person's Guide.

 

 

 

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