Ex-EastEnders star Katie Jarvis ‘arrested for drunken pub fight and being racially abusive’

It has been claimed that former EastEnders actress Katie Jarvis is the woman featured in a video of a pub brawl in Essex – leading to an arrest for ‘racially aggravated public order’.

According to The Sun, the mother-of-two, 29, is the brunette involved in the fight which took place on Friday evening on the seafront.

The video was shot by a bystander on their phone and sees five black women scuffling with a white woman, after she reportedly called one of them a ‘f***ing black c***,’ and yelling, ‘f*** Black Lives Matter!’

The clip sees the group of women brawling in the outside drinking area of the Papillon pub in Southend-on-Sea, before it spills out onto the street.

The video was posted to Facebook and has been viewed over 20,000 times, picked up first by local paper The Chelmsford & Mid-Essex Times.

The publication published Essex police’s statement about the incident, which said: ‘A 29-year old woman was arrested on Friday 31 July just after 10.05pm following reports of a disturbance in Marine Parade, Southend.

‘She has been arrested on suspicion of assault and racially aggravated public order. She has been released on bail until Friday 21 August.’

MailOnline has contacted Katie’s rep for comment. 

The clip sees the women screaming at one another as they all stumble into the street, towards the road.

The pub’s sign is pushed over and punters are seen dodging out the way as the group of women repeatedly strike the woman believed to be Katie.

The sounds of glasses smashing can be heard as another woman attempts to break the fight up, with a man then getting involved.

At this point, the police pull up in a van to intervene.

Katie was identified by a witness who says they heard the woman yell ‘I’m a famous actress!’ as her friends chimed in with: ‘She’s Hayley Slater from EastEnders!’ 

It’s understood that the tiff began when Katie took a chair from the group of women’s table  

A witness  claimed: ‘I couldn’t believe it. Police arrested her and Katie was saying “I haven’t done anything wrong!”‘

Actress Katie has two children – Lillie Mae, 11, and Alfie, eight. 

She was involved in a bar brawl in March 2019, when she was ‘glassed by a drunken Irish man’ on a night out in London.

She was treated by medical staff after the attack, said to have been out in Romford when she was attacked.

At the time, she tweeted her thanks to the police service for ‘looking after’ her.

She said: ‘Big thank you to the Met police tonight and ambulance service for looking after me after I was glassed by a drunken Irish man for f*** all.’

However, she later deleted the tweet after fans spotted it and inquired after her well-being.

She later posted: ‘Thanks lovely lot I’m good as gold.’

She then thanked fans and sent out a tweet to ‘put minds at rest’, posting: ‘Ok to put people’s minds, and questions to rest. I am absolutely fine thank you so much for all your concern and checking in on me but i’m a soldier and been through a hell of alot worse.

‘Now you can start focusing your concerns on some real news. ‘Love you all xx’ 

According to The Mirror her agent refused to discuss the incident.

She said: ‘I have no comment to make to any newspaper on any subject to do with anything. Whatever it is I don’t want to hear.’

She made headlines last year when it was revealed she had become a security guard at bargain store B&M in Romford, East London, following her departure from EastEnders.

She was pictured outside the store on a break last October, having a coffee and a cigarette, leading to much attention from soap fans.

She then appeared on Victoria Derbyshire, followed by an interview with Grazia magazine, to admit she had felt ‘hurt and embarrassed’ for being ‘made to feel ashamed for having a normal job’.

She added that she was proud to speak out on behalf of hard-working single mums because providing for her family is paramount to her.

Katie said: ‘It’s the nature of being an actor; gigs come and go, and after my contract with EastEnders ended in February, I found a new job as soon as I could. Doing work like this is also what keeps me grounded.’

Katie revealed she ‘crumbled’ and was left in tears after a friend alerted her to the front page news.

But upon reflection and thanks to the support of fellow thespians from Tamzin Outwaite to Nathalie Emmanuel, she is ‘proud’ to have changed the conversation.

‘Their support gave me the strength to speak out and stand up for hard-working people – especially single mums’, she said, and insisted her priority in life is caring for her two children, saying: ‘As long as I’m providing for them, nothing else matters. Everything I do is for them.’

She said she is proud to take on any work she can to ‘keep busy and learn new things’.   

Katie pointed that ‘all actors go through it over the years, I’ve had so many jobs in between and not just being a security guard.’

‘At 17 when I got [first movie role] Fish Tank I was doing doughnuts with my uncle at the time at festivals and things like that so I’d go on there and do the food carts,’ she said. ‘I’ve been a waitress, I’ve worked at a credit card company, I’ve done admin, I’ve done all types of things.’

Katie added that when she first saw the photos of herself she felt ashamed but is now proud that she’s doing all she can to provide for her family. 

‘One of my sisters she calls me a dabbler because I seem to do a bit of everything and I like to be busy and I like to learn new things, it doesn’t matter what it is,’ she told Victoria Derbyshire.

She added: ‘The people I work with there are amazing, they get up every single day, they work hard for their money and it doesn’t matter what job you’re doing, I don’t feel like anyone should be made to feel like how I felt when I woke up do you know what I mean, because I think as long as you’re working that’s all that matters.’

Katie said being a security guard isn’t easy and that she actually works alongside her sister at the bargain store, explaining: ‘A lot goes into being a security guard, they put themselves at risk. I took that job on and joined my sister because she’s a security guard there.’ 

Katie joined the Eastenders cast in 2018 as the cousin of Kat Slater [Jessie Wallace].

One of her storylines saw her have an affair with Kat’s husband Alfie Moon [Shane Richie] while they lived in Spain with Kat and their children.

Hayley then fell pregnant, giving birth to daughter Cherry.

Dramatic scenes aired over the subsequent Christmas season, leading to a shocking showdown between Hayley, Alfie and Kat. In one scene, Hayley pushed Alfie down a flight of stairs.

Katie’s character was last seen on screen in February 2019 when Stacey Fowler, played by Lacey Turner, went to hospital to collect her after treatment for her mental health. 

The troubled young mum had discharged herself and taken off. But BBC bosses were said to be keeping the door open for her return.

Katie, from Dagenham, found fame in Hollywood before winning a part in the BBC soap, starring in 2009 movie Fish Tank.