Jacqui McQueen
UK soap opera character, created 2006

Jacqui McQueen (also Malota and Ashworth) is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, played by Claire Cooper. She debuted on-screen during the episode airing on 26 September 2006 and was introduced by series producer Bryan Kirkwood as part of the McQueen family. Cooper has stated that whilst Lucy Allan produced the serial she was not used and that Jacqui had "lost her identity". In 2010 when Paul Marquess took over the role, he recognised she was an under used character and split her apart from the McQueen family, subsequently increasing her role within the show. Jacqui has been portrayed as a "tough ex-con" and is extremely feisty, she often takes on the matriarch role within the McQueens.
Many of Jacqui's early storylines revolved around her life of crime, marrying Aleksander Malota (Jon Lolis) to pay off debts and her wayward relationship with Tony Hutchinson (Nick Pickard), which became popular with viewers. One of her most prominent early plots involved her desire to have her own child after a miscarriage left her unable to, this resulted in failed adoption, various surrogate mother stories involving her family and eventually led to the breakdown of her relationship with Tony. Jacqui's later storylines involved her relationship with Des Townsend (Kris Deedigan), covering up Calvin Valentine's (Ricky Whittle) murder, being blackmailed and held at knifepoint for sex and a "surprise relationship" with Rhys Ashworth (Andrew Moss) which also become very popular with audiences. In 2011, Jacqui made a rape accusation against Gilly Roach (Anthony Quinlan), and whether Gilly is guilty or innocent was decided by a jury composed of viewers. The storyline subsequently resulted in Gilly being found not guilty, although it is later revealed that he did rape her.
“Jacqui McQueen” enters the record as uK soap opera character, created 2006. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jacqui, McQueen and soap can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jacqui McQueen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.