Emmerdale actress fired

Emmerdale's Shila Iqbal AXED from soap over 'historic racist tweets'

Shila Iqbal has been told to leave Emmerdale after historic social media posts resurfaced.

Emmerdale actress Shila Iqbal has been axed from her role in the soap over offensive historic social media posts that recently came to light.

It comes just weeks after 24-year-old Iqbal joined the ITV soap as permanent cast member, after making a brief appearance as Aiesha Richards in 2018.

An Emmerdale spokeswoman confirmed news of her depature: "As a consequence of historic social media posts Shila Iqbal has left her role as Aiesha Richards on Emmerdale.

"The programme took the decision not to renew her contract as soon as these posts were brought to the company's attention."

According to Mail Online, Iqbal was fired after bosses learnt of a series of historic 'racist' tweets in which the N-word was used, claims an insider.

The posts are said to have dated back to 2013 when Iqbal was 19-years-old and attended college in Rochdale.

Iqbal has since deleted her Twitter account.

After news of her sacking emerged, Iqbal issued a public apology and said she takes full responsibility for her 'inappropriate language.'

Shila joined the Emmerdale cast permanently this year (Image: emmerdale/Instagram)

She said: "I am terribly sorry and take full responsibility for my use of such inappropriate language. I have paid the price and can no longer continue the job I loved the most at Emmerdale.

"Although I was young when I made the Tweets, it was still completely wrong of me to do so and I sincerely apologise.

"The only consideration I would ask is that I have recently received hateful tweets telling me that as a Muslim my Emmerdale role means that I am ‘committing sinful acts, promoting sin and deliberately going against the Quran’.

"We live in sensitive times for members of all communities and especially those in multi-racial Rochdale where I grew up.

"I regret that I too have let people down by the use of such language, albeit six years ago. I, like everyone else have a responsibility about the language I have used on social media as well as in conversation."

The actress was upgraded to an official member of Emmerdale in March this year, to play the role of Manpreet Jutla’s daughter.

After signing her contract she gushed to Digital Spy: "I am over the moon to be back at Emmerdale as a regular.

"My family love Emmerdale and to be appearing in a show that you've grown up watching just feels like a dream! I'm really grateful to the producers for bringing me back

"Everyone has been lovely, especially my on-screen family, who have just been so welcoming and have really made me feel at home. I have to be careful not to call cast members by their character names though!" she added.

Iqbal said that her character Aiesha 'represents the new generation of social media fascination and her phone is her third hand. She is always camera ready! She speaks her mind, although it comes from a ditzy but good place for sure."