Zoe Ventoura Talks About Her Rafters Departure on Sunrise

Zoe Ventoura played the much-loved Mel Rafter on Packed to the Rafters whose onscreen death shocked 2.335 million viewers last night. The reaction from fans has been overwhelming, with many mourning the loss of the popular character and what it will mean for her husband, Ben. Zoe is currently in LA but chatted with Mel and Kochie on Sunrise this morning via satellite (as Kochie put it, from the “Rafter-life”) about why she left. The simple fact is that she didn’t renew her contract. She said, “I had come over to LA in one of our filming breaks and had a really positive response, and I kind of thought, ‘I’m not getting any younger,’ so it kind of felt like the right time.” She said she didn’t have any say in how she would be written off, but that she “trusted that they [the writers] would handle it with the utmost respect and dignity and in the best way possible . . . I’m so humbled that they trusted me with this storyline.” So as Zoe tries to make an international name for herself and we get used to Rafters without Mel, check out her interview here.