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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | So far, it has been you against me, Chantelle, and that is not right! | „ |
| ~ Gray Atkins to his wife Chantelle while domestically abusing her. |
| “ | You're not going anywhere ever! Your place is here with me! | „ |
| ~ Gray Atkins refusing to let Chantelle leave him before pushing her onto a knife which resulted in her death. |
Gray Atkins is a fictional character and major antagonist of the BBC British soap opera EastEnders, first debuting in March 2019 and becoming the show's main antagonist up until his departure on March 2022.
At first glance the character appears to be a charmingly attractive and respectful man that will defend any innocent person in court due to being a solicitor. However, he has a very dark side to him which includes beating and abusing his wife. The abuse is both physical and psychological as Gray mistreats his wife when he feels like it is deserved due to Chantelle doing a supposed wrong. Gray once made Chantelle hold her breath underwater for several minutes as a test. The psychological abuse includes belittling and bullying Chantelle to the point she does not say a word against him in fear of what he will do. Also he makes Chantelle feels like the guilty party and portrays himself as the victim. When he reputation is threaten, Gray will do whatever he can to preserve his reputation and can even turn homicidal to the people who threaten to expose him.
He is portrayed by Toby-Alexander Smith.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- He routinely abuses his wife, Chantelle both physically and psychologically, The abuse physical abuse includes punching her in the stomach, breaking her arm and making her hold her breath underwater as a test. The psychological abuse includes constantly belittling her and making her feel like the guilty party while making himself appear the victim. Chantelle becomes petrified to say a single word against him.
- He punched his wife in the stomach twice with a lot of force, causing Chantelle to fall to the floor in pain.
- He forces himself on Chantelle so that they can have another kid.
- He once broke his wife's arm intentionally.
- He made his wife hold her breath underwater for several minutes as a test.
- Although he is always polite around his children and never abused Chantelle in front of them, he isn't above using them to guilt trip or blackmail his wife Chantelle. He even threatened to kill them if she left him, almost doing so until she stopped him.
- When Chantelle was fed up of all the abuse over the lockdown period she prepares to leave him and take his children. However, he refuses to let her leave and pushes her onto the dishwasher which contains a knife by accident. However, he then decides not to call an ambulance but decides to go outside and buy some milk and then returns home and drops the milk, making out Chantelle died by accident. When he did call an ambulance she was already gone meaning he was more worried about himself going to prison than saving his dying wife.
- After feeling guilty about Chantelle's death, he decides to blow up his house which will also kill his children as they are present in the home. However, he does not care but is persuaded out of it by Shirley Carter.
- When Tina Carter finds out that Gray abused and killed Chantelle, Gray refuses to let Tina leave to prevent her from exposing his crimes. Despite the fact Tina's sister saved him from committing suicide he still kills Tina. After the murder he continues to lie to her family by making out she is safe.
- When Kush Kazemi is going to leave and take Whitney he decides to find him and start a fight which leaves Gray on the train tracks. Kush manages to prevent him from dying by grabbing him up in time before a subway hits him but Gray betrays him and pushes Kush in front of the subway which results in Kush's death.
- He claimed that his father was abusive to his mother during his childhood and resulted in Gray becoming abusive himself. However, this was later proven to be false. In fact, it was Gray who had been abusive to his own mother. Even if any of this had been true, it still wouldn't have excused any of Gray's villainous actions.
- Even though he saved his enemy Kheerat Panesar from a burning house, it's clear that like many of his good deeds they were done out of pragmatism as he wanted to maintain his image as The Square's local "hero" and gain Kheerat's trust in order to eliminate the latter's suspicion of his abusive nature.
- He pretends to be Tina Carter and requests Shirley Carter to send 10k to himself.
- When Whitney ends a relationship with him he grabs a knife and threatens her but he manages to control himself.
- He attempts to kill his wife, Chelsea for calling the police on him but is prevented as the police arrive in time.
- He taunts Karen that he killed her daughter and Gray even pointed at his eyes meaning that his eyes were the last thing Chantelle saw before she died which caused Karen to break down.
- He unnecessarily hits Shirley Carter from behind with a stool leaving her unconscious and in hospital.
- He attempted to goad Whitney in dropping him to his death just to avoid going to prison for his crimes, even going as far to taunt her over Kush's murder by confessing it to her. This in turn nearly works until Whitney is helped by Mitch at the last second, thus allowing Gray to finally be arrested and subsequently jailed for his crimes.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- After his wife died, he was genuinely sad and felt actual remorse. So much so that he even came close to admitting his crimes as he felt he needed to be punished.
- While his politeness was mostly fake, he was genuinely affable and protective to some people. This was demonstrated when he defended Whitney Dean in court after she is charged for the murder of Leo King, who she killed in self-defence and the matter of which Gray sympathized her with due to her ordeal.
Trivia[]
- He is currently the only EastEnders villain to be Near Pure Evil.
- Gray was so loathsome, the actor who portrayed Gray (Toby-Alexander Smith) was subjected to online harassment from people being unable to separate the actor from the character which peaked during Gray's domestic abuse of Chantelle. However, Smith admitted the backlash was worth it if it assisted in real domestic abuse victims escape.
See also[]
- Gray Atkins on the Villains Wiki
- Gray Atkins on the Hate Sink Wiki
- Gray Atkins on the EastEnders Wiki
- Gray Atkins on Wikipedia