The TV and theatre star said the death of her long-term partner was ‘by far’ the most difficult thing she had ever been through as she opened up about the lessons she has learned from grief
Former EastEnders star Jill Halfpenny has described the death of her partner Matt Janes from a sudden heart attack as “the hardest thing she’s ever gone through”. The Gateshead-born actress, 50, also lost her father around 40 years earlier, when the 36 year old suffered a similar attack during a game of five-a-side football, when Jill was just four.
Reflecting on how she has coped with the compounded grief since losing Matt, 43, in 2017, the mum of one said she has tried to turn her emotions into something positive. “I guess what I’ve learned from it is that if I can get through that, and if I can try to come to terms with it and accept it, then… it’s not that I feel indestructible, but I feel I’ve worked a muscle, and I’ve learned something about myself,” she says in a new interview.
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The actress, who became a household name playing Nicola Dobson in the coming-of-age series Byker Grove, has previously shared that she first discovered Matt had died during a gym session after he failed to return home on time. After arriving at the gym, she discovered Matt lying on the studio floor. He was taken by ambulance to hospital but attempts to resuscitate him with a defibrillator were unsuccessful.
Jill said the first person she called was “her mam”, and she was very aware of triggering her own grief. “I could hear the fear in my mam’s voice. I was ringing her with the news about Matt, but I was still thinking about her, that she knows exactly how this feels,” she told The Sunday Times in 2024. “And I could hear it in her voice, I could hear that she knew I was about to go on that same journey.”
She continued, “And as we heal, and as we talk, and as we communicate, and as we connect, then the space around the stone starts to get a bit bigger. I don’t think the stone necessarily gets smaller; I think the space around it does. Tiny, incremental wins happen, and then you go to bed that night, and you think, ‘Oh, maybe things are going to be alright’.”
Jill, whose recent TV credits include main roles in the TV dramas The Cuckoo, The Drowning and Everything I Know About Love, also previously revealed that she and Matt were trying for a baby at the time of his death. She also has one son, teenager Harvey, from her marriage to actor Craig Conway, who she divorced from in 2010.
She is now in a relationship with partner Ian McAllister, after revealing that Matt once made her promise she would “meet someone else and find love again”. Speaking about the relationship in 2024, Jill said: “It sounds so cheesy, but I think Ian and I met at the perfect time. After Matt died, I didn’t know if I’d ever meet anyone again, but Ian is my cheerleader – I know I’ve met somebody who I love and who loves me.”
