EastEnders star June Brown, who plays long-standing character, Dot Cotton, reveals she is going blind and has now stopped socialising as she can no longer recognise friends and family due to her eyesight.
June, 92, who has been a part of Eastenders for over 30 years now. She has revealed that she’s had to quit reading newspapers and now uses her Amazon Alexa voice assistant to provide news for her.
She suffers from macular degeneration, an age-related condition, for 10 years which causes blurriness or blindness. June did have an eye operation in 2017 to fit extra lenses in her eyes, but it didn’t work as well as she’d hoped it would.
When she was recently Speaking to the Daily Mirror, she stated-
‘Alexa could help me keep up with what’s going on in the world, because I’ve given up on my papers now. I could read the headlines at one time but that’s impossible now.
‘I’ve got very poor sight. I’ve got extra lenses inside my eyes to try and help me read better. They help with my peripheral vision, but I’ve got no central vision at all. I haven’t driven for years and I can’t really go out socially due to my eyesight.’
The soap legend has spoken about her condition in the past, in 2017 she shared details about her pioneering sixty second operation, she was one of the first people to ever undergo the Eyemax Mono procedure, quite a claim to fame.
June has now battled with the highly debilitating condition for more than a decade, and this was replicated with her on screen character Dot as she also battled losing her sight in the popular tv show.
The famous British actress has portrayed her regular ‘local old lady’ character Dot in EastEnders for two big periods since 1985, and she is said to still enjoy her time in Albert Square ‘immensely’ to this day.
Dot Cotton first stepped foot in Walford in 1985 and remained on the show until 1993, when she quit after being unhappy about her co-star being axed at the time, that was Pete Beale (aka Peter Deane).
It was also revealed recently that the star has no plans to stop smoking or drinking. As she approaches 93 years old, she believes she will die of something fairly soon and refuses to quit her years long habits.
