Emmerdale's Lisa Riley ‘learned a lot about grief' after Robin Windsor death

Wales Online

12-06-2025

Emmerdale's Lisa Riley 'learned a lot about grief' after Robin Windsor death
The 48-year-old, who plays Mandy Dingle on the ITV soap, lost her mother in July 2012
Emmerdale star Lisa Riley on Good Morning Britain
(Image: ITV )
Emmerdale star Lisa Riley has said she "learned a lot about grief" after the death of her mother and her "best friend" Robin Windsor.
The 48-year-old, who plays Mandy Dingle on the ITV soap, lost her mother in July 2012, just months before she joined BBC dancing show Strictly Come Dancing, where she was paired up with Windsor, who she credits with helping her through her grief.
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Windsor died in February last year at the age of 44, and his cause of death was not given.
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Asked about how she coped with the two deaths on ITV's Good Morning Britain, Riley said: "I've learned a lot about grief and how to deal with it, and how to be open and to literally ask for help, because it's okay.
"Sometimes people go really within, my brother's that person, we all deal with things differently, and I was pressing the bravado button going, 'I've got to go out and play Mandy Dingle every day, I've got to dress up as Mandy and be funny'.
"There were some days I didn't want to be funny, I'm lucky with the brilliant girls in my dressing room, where we lean on each other, and my work with Sue Ryder, I've realised that there is a helpline out there.
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"The internet is brilliant, there are so many places you can go to, Sue Ryder being one of them for help."
Riley went on to say that the Emmerdale team were "phenomenal" following their deaths, but said she wanted to continue working.
The actress said: "Me, being me, I didn't want to be at home in my bedroom, or at home thinking about it too much, I had to carry on with my day job.
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"But the make-up girls, what people at home won't know when they're watching Emmerdale is I was having my make-up done three times because I couldn't get it together, I couldn't, day in, day out, and work were brilliant, like we know, we'll write you out, we'll give you time off should you need it.
"But I wanted to do my job and keep going, because I know Robin would have wanted that, that sparkle, he wanted to keep that spark alive, and I felt I had to do that for him."
She said that when she first met Windsor and they began preparing for the BBC dancing show, she told him she wanted no-one to know her mother had died.
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Riley added: "I said, 'under no circumstances can anyone in the press, anyone, know that my mum has just died', because the thought of someone picking up the phone to vote for us as a sympathy vote would break my heart, it would break my mother's heart.
"And Robin was like, 'I'm with you', he understood that, because some people would have gone, 'oh woe is me'.
"We did it because we were Lisa and Robin, the original Will and Grace, and that's what people fell in love with, they fell in love with just us two."