Jamie Lee O'Donnell, 39, best known for playing Michelle in Derry Girls, says she has come out the other side of a therapy process she describes as pretty intense and really tough. Speaking on the Dish podcast with hosts Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett, she summed up where she has landed simply. All the healing's done, she said.
Getting there involved a decision she has been open about even though it is not an easy one to share publicly. I had to go no contact with my entire family, she explained. It's just one of those things. She said talking about it openly has shown her that the choice is, unfortunately, not the most unusual thing for adults, even if it rarely gets discussed this directly.
O'Donnell describes herself as hyper independent, someone who researches a decision thoroughly before acting on it, and that pattern shaped both the therapy itself and what came after. She began the process to unpack a lot of stuff from my childhood, and once it was finished she sold her house and moved to Barcelona in February 2025 for a genuine fresh start rather than a small adjustment.
She also pointed to a cultural backdrop that made the decision harder to talk about growing up. Therapy and mental health are not traditionally embraced in Irish culture, she said, particularly in Northern Ireland, where the instinct tends to be just get on with it. O'Donnell is set to star next in the BBC comedy series Hopley Hall, moving forward with a version of herself she says she chose deliberately rather than inherited.