prompted by a lesbian kiss with Michelle Ryan's character, Zoe Slater. The kiss was criticised in the British media as cheap sensationalism and branded as a ratings-stunt. Louise Berridge, the one-time executive producer of EastEnders, made the decision to axe Kinsella's character in 2004 to allow further character development of her on-screen best friend, Zoe Slater; however, Kinsella maintains it was a mutual decision between herself and Berridge. In March 2008, Brooke said in an interview with Woman magazine that she would love to return to EastEnders at some point. In 2018, she helped the writers of EastEnders with a stabbing storyline involving the characters, Shakil Kazemi and Keegan Taylor. Kinsella and her real-life partner Ray Panthaki (who played Ronny Ferreira in EastEnders) played a heroin-taking couple in director Andrew Jones's film The Feral Generation, which was shot during the period of December 2006 and January 2007 and premiered at the 2007 Portobello Film Festival. Her debut novel, Friendship Is A Funny Thing is awaiting publication. She was made an MBE for her work on knife crime in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2011. Personal life Kinsella's father left the family when she was four years old and she was subsequently raised by her mother Debbie and stepfather George, who Kinsella has described as her "real dad". She lives in Islington, north London and is the oldest of four children; she has two sisters, Jade and Georgia, and a half brother, Ben. Kinsella married her long-term partner Simon Boardley on 28 December 2017. On 22 September 2020, Kinsella gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Elsie Rose Georgia Boardley. On 29 June 2022, Kinsella gave birth to their second child, a boy, Ben Ross Boardley, named after her brother. Murder of brother On 29 June 2008 at 02:00 BST, Kinsella's 16-year-old brother, Ben Kinsella was stabbed to death by a gang of three youths in a London street. Ben, the seventeenth teenager killed in London in 2008, died in hospital a few hours later. Kinsella said she was "devastated". Following his death, Kinsella and her family led hundreds of people in a march to protest against London's knife and gun crime. On 3 July 2008, three people were charged with Ben's murder, for which they were later tried and convicted. The Kinsella family launched the Ben Kinsella Trust in Ben's memory, in a bid to end knife crime. In the