Keanu Taylor

Name: Keanu Taylor
First Appeared: 15th June 2017
Last Appeared: 4th April 2024
Played by: Danny Walters

The Taylors did not arrive on Albert Square with any subtlety. As the eldest son, Keanu took on the role of the man of the house, a responsibility that often saw him juggling multiple jobs to support his large family. From working as a mechanic to a brief stint as a nude life model, Keanu’s willingness to do whatever it took to provide for his loved ones was quite touching really. But his own love life? Well… there’s a word for it: Sheanu…

His affair with Sharon, the then-wife of the formidable Phil Mitchell, was filled with passion, secrecy, and inevitable drama. The affair led to the birth of her son, Albie, or so we thought at the time. Not one to shy away from making his life even more difficult, Keanu also had a relationship with Louise Mitchell, Sharon’s stepdaughter, resulting in the birth of their daughter, Peggy!

Despite his best efforts to stay out of trouble, Keanu often found himself embroiled in the darker side of Walford life. His involvement in various criminal activities, including a heist orchestrated by Aidan Maguire, meant putting himself in dangerous situations. His clashes with Phil Mitchell, who was less than pleased about Keanu’s relationship with Sharon, was a ticking time bomb, waiting to go off…

Keanu did the sensible thing and left the Square after the boat crash, but returned over a year later, desperate to see his child. Before you knew it, Sharon was letting him into her home (and more) and the pair ended up engaged to be married!

If it had all stopped there, Keanu may have walked away unscathed. But scared of losing Albie, he faked the child’s kidnapping. When this came to light, he blamed mother Karen, ruining her already damaged rep amongst the locals. Sharon also had issues with Albie, unwell at the time, from an illness genetically linked to the parents – and Keanu didn’t have the gene.

This threw Sharon as it meant that Albie was now a Mitchell and not a Taylor. When she discovered the extent of Keanu’s deceptions she humiliated him on Christmas Day at the altar and brutally informed him that Albie was Phil’s son.

Keanu confronted Sharon afterwards in the Queen Vic. Angry and in a rage, he went to strangle Sharon, but went down like a sack of potatoes when Linda stabbed him fatally with a meat thermometer. Sharon, Linda, Suki, Stacey, Denise and Kathy, now united as the Six, swore to cover up the crime, framing Dean Wicks in the process. His body was discovered months later.