Martin Kemp was once brutally attacked on the street during his time on the hit show EastEnders. Years later, he revealed it was the “most scared” he has ever been.
Martin said the blow from the punch was so impactful that she struggled to breathe.
But the unexpected attack was directed at his EastEnders character Steve Owen, one of television’s most prominent villains in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Martin Kemp recounts scary street attack from EastEnders days
Martin gained popularity as Steve Owen on EastEnders, a role he played from 1998 to 2002. And it seems his performance was so powerful that one fan launched an attack on the actor because of it.
I was punched in the chest once, really hard. Hard enough to stop me breathing.
Martin was on the podcast he shares with son Roman Kemp, FFS! My Dad is Martin Kemp, when he recollected the scary incident from decades ago.
He said: “I was punched in the chest once, really hard. Hard enough to stop me breathing, you know when you can’t breathe?”
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Detailing the attack, he explained: “I was walking down Tottenham Court Road thinking, oh yeah, life’s good, and I was Steve Owen in EastEnders.
“Tottenham Court Road, on my own, and you know you don’t want people to recognise you, so I’ve got my baseball cap on and my head’s down a little bit, so my eyes are not looking what’s in front of me and I’m looking down at the pavement.”
Martin continued: “I was walking to Groucho’s at the end of Tottenham Court Road and someone walked up to me, completely out of the blue, and said: ‘Steve Owen, I owe you this,’ and punched me as hard as they could in the chest, in my ribcage.”
The actor struggled to breathe after the stranger took a swing at him.
‘He didn’t like me’
The man fled before Martin could wrap his head around what had just happened. All he could conclude was that the attacker didn’t like him.
He explained to his son Roman: “All I could do was look up and see them running up the road. Everyone just moved around, avoided it, and I was standing on the pavement struggling for breath because it winded me.”
Martin admitted to having got into fights before, but the impact from the street attack threw him off. In fact, he and his brother Gary settled their rows with a “proper fist fight” during their Spandau Ballet days.
However, the actor struggled to cope with the street attack. He said: “That was the most scared I’ve ever been. This bloke was massive and he didn’t like me.”
Read more: Martin Kemp on why brain tumour ordeal left him feeling ’embarrassed’
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