Sharon Watts (also Mitchell, Rickman and Beale) is a fictional character from the BBC One soap opera, EastEnders, played by Letitia Dean. Sharon was 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 Queen Vic landlords Den (Leslie Grantham) and Angie Watts (Anita Dobson). Dean originally quit the role in 1995 after ten years, with Sharon departing following the breakdown of her marriage. In May 2001, Sharon was reintroduced by producer John Yorke, before departing in January 2006. Dean's return was announced in February 2012, and she later made her on-screen return on 13 August 2012 in a week of episodes involving her wedding day to John Hewland (Jesse Birdsall). In 2024, Dean took a break from the show, with Sharon exiting on 9 January and returning on 1 April. She took another break in the following year, with Sharon departing on 8 April and returned on 22 September. She took another extended break the following month, with Sharon exiting on 21 October 2025.

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 (Ross Kemp) and Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden). 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 (Danny Walters). In her second stint, Sharon featured in storylines that included a feud with Phil and Grant's mother Peggy Mitchell (Barbara Windsor); the return of Den, thought long dead, bonding with his wife Chrissie Watts (Tracy-Ann Oberman) until it emerged that she killed Den in retribution for sleeping with Zoe Slater (Michelle Ryan); and a forbidden relationship-turned-marriage with Den's son Dennis Rickman (Nigel Harman), which culminated with his death after the couple ended up feuding with gangster Johnny Allen (Billy Murray).

Since 2012, Sharon's storylines have featured an aborted engagement to Jack Branning (Scott Maslen); battling a painkiller addiction; a reunion and tempestuous marriage to Phil; being attacked in her own bar, meeting her biological father Gavin Sullivan (Paul Nicholas) and her affair with Keanu popularly dubbed 'Sheanu'; sparking the events of Sharon having a late in life pregnancy, her split and divorce with Phil after her affair with Keanu is revealed, giving birth to a son Albie (who Sharon believes is Keanu's son) on the same night her other son, Dennis Jnr, dies in a boat accident due to Phil, stepson Ben (Max Bowden), and Keanu fighting in the wheelhouse, and her friend Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) locking him in a room on the boat as he found out Denny orchestrated the attack on Ian's son Bobby (Clay Milner Russell). Sharon attempts suicide before becoming the landlady of The Queen Vic once again. As part of her revenge plan upon finding out Ian's role in Dennis' death, she marries Ian and attempts to poison him to death, but realised she can't do it and lets him flee. After this, Sharon discovers that she has a half-brother Zack Hudson (James Farrar), has a fling with Kheerat Panesar (Jaz Deol) and finds out she has a granddaughter, Alyssa. In December 2022, Keanu returns to Walford and he and Sharon reunite, before getting engaged. Sharon deals with Albie's kidnap unaware that Keanu has orchestrated it, and she also learns that Albie is not Keanu's son after all and that Phil is his real father. The storyline culminates with Keanu's death on Christmas Day 2023 after Sharon jilts him at the altar after learning of his role in Albie's kidnap, and reveals that Keanu is not Albie's father. Keanu almost kills Sharon before her best friend Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) stabs him to defend her during "The Six" storyline. In 2024, Sharon deals with the grief of losing Keanu which leads to her being in prison, bumping into Chrissie after framing Dean Wicks (Matt Di Angelo) with the help of the Six, develops a relationship with Phil and Grant's relative, Teddy Mitchell (Roland Manookian), and a feud with his ex-wife Nicola Mitchell (Laura Doddington).

She was named the best EastEnders character of all time by the Daily Mirror in 2020. For her portrayal of Sharon, Dean was awarded the British Soap Award for Outstanding Achievement at the 2022 British Soap Awards.

Sharon Watts was one of the original twenty-three characters conceived by the creators of EastEnders, Tony Holland and Julia Smith. She was originally to be named Tracey, and she and her parents were to be the occupants of the soap's local pub, now known as The Queen Vic. Holland, who had worked as a barman in his youth, called upon his own personal experiences to invent the Watts family and the pub they lived in. Holland and Smith had always been critical of the way pubs had been portrayed on television, feeling they lacked vitality and life, so they were determined that their pub and occupants were going to be more "real". The Watts were seen by Holland as integral to the show's success, partly because he had already guessed that the pub was going to be a monstrous battleground where emotions would run high on a regular basis, and also because the occupants would be providing the majority of the drama. Sharon's original character outline, as written by Smith and Holland, appeared in an abridged form in their 1987 book, EastEnders: The Inside Story. In this passage, Sharon is referred to as Tracey and her parents as Jack and Pearl (known now as Den and Angie).

Tracey is at the centre of her parents' dramas. The children of publicans nearly always suffer in one way or another: the fact that your 'home' is always 'open house' to a variety of strangers often produces genuine feelings of anxiety and insecurity. Tracey, being adopted, will be even more sensitive to this lack of permanence. Jack and Pearl do use her as something of a tennis ball in their games of playing things off against each other. Jack tries to buy her affection with gifts. Pearl sees her as something of a rival... Tracey's set on a course which is almost inevitable. Either, a collision, or, full-circle, to the same route as her parents took.

Although Sharon was meant to be fourteen, licensing regulations required the cast actress to be a sixteen-year-old who could "play down." Holland and Smith were looking for a "bouncy, attractive, oddly vulnerable young woman" who would come across as slightly more sophisticated than the character of Michelle Fowler, due to be Sharon's closest peer. Out of the various applicants they had seen, they felt only actress Letitia Dean had all of the qualities they were looking for. As the casting directors were only looking for real East End actors, Dean falsely claimed that she was born and raised in Hackney, east London. The lie paid off and she got the part, clinching the deal because of her laugh, which Holland and Smith have described as "the dirtiest in the world!"

Reflecting on her casting, Dean told the magazine, Woman, in 2005: "I was 16 when we started filming EastEnders and my contract was initially for eight weeks—none of us had any idea it would go on for so long. I nearly fainted when I saw Wendy Richard [who played Pauline Fowler] for the first time, because she was a really big name and I was in awe of her. Anita Dobson who played Angie Watts, [Sharon's] mum, took me under her wing." In the early days of EastEnders, it was in Letitia Dean's contract that she was not allowed to lose any weight.