Sharon Watts is a fictional character from the BBC One soap opera EastEnders, played by Letitia Dean. Sharon is one of EastEnders' original characters conceptualised by creators Tony Holland and Julia Smith. She first appeared in the first episode broadcast on 19 February 1985 as the teenage adopted daughter of pub landlords Den and Angie Watts . Sharon became prominent in the 1990s due to her becoming the landlady of The Queen Victoria public house and her romantic pairings with brothers Grant and Phil Mitchell . In a storyline dubbed Sharongate, Sharon married Grant and then has an affair with Phil, climaxing in 1994 with Grant's discovery of the affair, which remains one of EastEnders' highest viewed episodes; the storyline was reinvented in 2018 when Sharon began an affair with a much younger Keanu Taylor . She was named the best EastEnders character of all time by the Daily Mirror in 2020. For her portrayal of Sharon, Dean won the award for "Outstanding Achievement" at The British Soap Awards 2022.