Scott Mitchell and Barbara Windsor have gone public with the end of his three-year relationship with EastEnders star Tanya Franks. Mitchell said the pair decided in April that their romance should move into friendship, closing a relationship that began in 2023 after they met through the London Marathon in aid of Dementia Revolution.
In his statement, Mitchell said: “I can confirm Tanya and I had a couple of wonderful years together. In true respect of each other, we felt in April our relationship should evolve into a now incredible and kind friendship.” The wording puts a clear timeline on the split, and it is the first public account of how the relationship ended.
London Marathon to April
The pair’s connection started long before the split. Mitchell and Franks met in 2019 while running the London Marathon to raise money for Dementia Revolution, then began dating in 2023. That sequence matters because it shows the relationship grew out of a public charity effort rather than a private introduction, which is part of why Mitchell has now framed the separation in carefully respectful terms.
Mitchell also said: “Tanya is also a highly private person. Out of respect for her, I will not be commenting any further on this matter.” He described Franks as “a wonderful lady who knew Barbara” and said she was “very sure of herself as a person.”
Barbara Windsor and Scott Mitchell
The background here is unavoidable. Mitchell was married to Barbara Windsor for 20 years, and she died in December 2020 at the age of 83 following struggles with Alzheimer’s disease. They met in 1992 through Mitchell’s parents, and he has previously said on Kaye Adams’ How to Be 60 podcast in 2024 that Windsor wanted him to be happy.
He added then: “It can’t be easy to be with someone who was the other half of Barbara Windsor, especially the fact that I still put myself out there and talk about her.” He followed that with a direct defence of Franks, saying: “So, it says to me the type of person that Tanya is, that she can deal with that. She’s very sure of herself as a person. Just because you’re not with someone for whatever reason, it doesn’t mean to say that you just switch off some valve of love.”
Tanya Franks after 2024
The split leaves Mitchell describing the end of a three-year relationship in unusually plain language: not as a blow-up, but as a move into friendship. That is the key takeaway for readers tracking this story — the relationship is over, the tone is civil, and the only fresh detail now is the April decision that changed the status of one of EastEnders’ most recognisable names and Barbara Windsor’s widower.
