‘Y&R’ Star Tracey Bregman Recalls Getting ‘Death Threats’ for Bullying Beth Maitland on Show
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Tracey Bregman went through some tough times during her early days on The Young and the Restless.
Bregman opened up about the backlash she’s received over the years for playing villain-turned-fan favorite Lauren Fenmore on the Tuesday, August 26, episode of CBS’s Soapy podcast. “Oh, yes. I did. … And then having to be mean to Beth Maitland, I mean, come on,” she recalled.
Bregman stated that having to be mean to Maitland’s Traci Abbott on the show was “very difficult,” as the two actresses are good friends. “And I knew, because we were so close, how she was really feeling about a lot of things,” Bregman said. “And it was a story that was kind of based on her being a little overweight and being conscious about that. And then, I had to say the worst things to her, and Beth will tell you that I cried more than she did over it because I could barely get it out sometimes.”
On the flip side, Bregman said she and Maitland also shared “fun times” while filming, particularly when their characters got into a “physical fight” over Don Diamont‘s Brad Carlton. “But I will tell you, it was a double-edged sword, playing the mean girl, because I would get death threats and people tried to run me off the freeway. It was bad,” she stated. “There were some bad parts of it that I never really talked about, actually. I’ve never really talked about it.”
©CBS/courtesy Everett Collection
When asked if she ever went to the show’s producers to complain about her character’s actions, Bregman said, “I didn’t because it was also an extraordinary story for us to play as actors.”
Y&R alum Greg Rikaart said he also worked through similar struggles during his time playing Kevin Fisher on the CBS soap opera. “My experience and my belief on playing a quote-unquote bad guy is that there has to be some vulnerability and humanity underneath the mean thing that is being said or the mean thing that’s being done,” the Soapy podcast cohost shared. “And you having that is probably what made the audience not hate Lauren the way they maybe should have because she was doing these bad things.”
Bregman’s onscreen husband, Christian LeBlanc, also got off to a villainous start playing Michael Baldwin on Y&R. Like Rikaart, LeBlanc said there’s more to antagonists than their not-so-nice behavior.
Noting that he’s been asked whether he prefers to play “a bad guy or a good guy,” LeBlanc shared, “My answer is always, I’d like to play a human person, because there’s always the one who does the bad things for a good reason, and the good things for a bad reason.”
Beth Maitland (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
He continued, “That’s the heart of it. And if you’re playing that full-bodied human being, there is a chance for redemption, because that’s part of the human condition.”
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