Richard Blackwood teases EastEnders COMEBACK – despite Vincent Hubbard’s brutal exit
A former EastEnders star has addressed his character’s potential return despite them being dead as they made ‘thick skinned’ admission.
Many characters have returned from the dead over the years on the BBC soap, including when Dirty Den Watts stepped into the Queen Vic 14 years after he was shot and fell into the Walford canal in 1989.
Another EastEnders fake-out death was Kathy Beale, with viewers informed in 2006 that she died in a car crash in South Africa with her then-husband Gavin Sullivan.
After years of fans manifesting Ian Beale’s mum back on the programme, Kathy returned for the 30th anniversary episode in 2015 and has been a fan favourite once again ever since.
The last time the soap decided to resurrect a character was when Michelle Collins’ Cindy Beale stepped foot in Walford in 2023, in spite of it being said 20 years prior that she passed away during childbirth in prison.
Recent weeks have seen fans becoming convinced that Vincent Hubbard might not have died and believe Richard Blackwood’s character is drug dealer Ravi Gulati’s boss.
The 52-year-old actor’s character left Albert Square under mysterious circumstances in 2018, when Vincent fell into a trap set up by Phil Mitchell, crime boss Aidan Maguire and corrupt cop DCI Alsworth.
Vinvent was last seen being held at gunpoint by DCI Alsworth in the back of a car, seemingly about to be killed before they drove out of Walford together in the vehicle.
After three years of fans desperately wanting to find out if Vincent was dead or alive, in 2021 they found out that he had been killed by Aidan’s henchmen in 2018.
Speaking to BANG Showbiz at the 2025 Best Heroes Awards, Richard had his say on complaints about how Vincent’s death was handled and if he was even killed in the first place.
“I think more for the audience. I’m thick-skinned, I’m OK with the decisions they made. I have no bad blood with EastEnders.
“But the audience, because I hear the audience always say, ‘Is Vincent coming back?’ And I always say, ‘I don’t know.’ So I think more for the audience than myself,” he said.
During Richard’s time on Albert Square, Vincent, who was Kim Fox’s husband, was asked by his foster sister Donna Yates to be the father of her child as a donor .
The storyline sparked a complicated situation with Kim and her family as Vincent and Donna failed to get pregnant after several attempts.
Since leaving the programme, Richard has competed on Dancing on Ice in 2019 and joined Hollyoaks the following year as Felix Westwood.
Teasing that a return may be on the horizon, Richard said: “I watch it, and I go, ‘Maybe one day, Vincent will come back in there’. I would never say never.”