7 Stars Who Left Daytime Dramas Under Contentious Circumstances
The days of Kristian Alfonso’s life will look different now that she’s leaving the NBC soap Days of Our Lives.
And it doesn’t sound like there’s any love lost between Alfonso, who played Hope Williams Brady off and on since 1983, and her former employers. In a Soap Opera Digest Q&A cited by TVLine, the actress said that as of late, the show hasn’t been “the Days of Our Lives as I know it.”
Alfonso isn’t the first actor to exit a daytime drama amid drama, of course. Scroll down to read about other acrimonious soap opera departures.
Brenda Dickson, The Young and the Restless
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Dickson, who originated the role of Jill Abbott on Y&R, claimed in her 2013 autobiography that she was fired from the show in 1987 and blacklisted by William J. Bell, creator of both Y&R and The Bold and the Beautiful.
Beverlee McKinsey, Guiding Light
McKinsey cited an exit clause in her contract when she abruptly left Guiding Light in 1992, after eight years of playing Alexandra Spaulding. “I had warned [executive producer] Jill [Farren Phelps]—although I don’t think she paid attention to me—that I was not happy,” the actress told Soap Opera Digest in 2004. “I was not happy with the storyline. I don’t believe she’d read my contract, and she was not aware that I could quit every six months. I said to her at the time that I discussed that I was unhappy, ‘I may just have to quit.’ And she said, ‘You have a contract.’ And I said, ‘You better read it.’”
Michael Zaslow, Guiding Light
Zaslow was let go from Guiding Light in 1997 after his symptoms from ALS, a progressive nervous system disease, began to show. The firing left him unemployed with two daughters to support, as The Washington Post reported in 1999. “They called him in after a show and said, ‘Michael, this is your last show. We’re going to have to replace you,’” his widow, Susan Hufford, told the newspaper. “He was in shock; we all were.”
Chadwick Boseman, All My Children
Kelsey McNeal/ABC
Boseman played Reggie Porter Montgomery on All My Children in 2003 but objected to the stereotypical aspects of the role, and he lost the part to future Black Panther costar Michael B. Jordan. “They said, ‘You are too much trouble,’ but they took my suggestions, or some of them,” Boseman told TheWrap in 2019. “And for me, honestly, that’s what this is about.”
Eric Braeden, The Young and the Restless
CBS
Braeden briefly left Y&R in 2009 after contract negotiations with Sony broke down. “There is no appreciation of the fact that I’ve been an important part of the show for nearly 30 years that has been No. 1 in the ratings,” he told Entertainment Weekly during the impasse. “That’s extraordinary. So to be dealt with in a perfunctory matter as if you had just known these people for a few months is what is most offensive.”
Michael Muhney, The Young and the Restless
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According to TMZ, Muhney was fired from Y&R in 2014 after costar Hunter King alleged that he had fondled her on two occasions. He denied the report, calling it a “salacious rumor.”
Jonathon McClendon, Days of Our Lives
Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images for AT&T and Saban Films
McClendon blasted Days of Our Lives in now-deleted tweets after playing Chase Jennings on the soap for nearly a year. “It’s time for the fans to know the @nbcdays is f**king everyone over,” he wrote in 2017, per TV Series Finale. He also claimed that the show had been on for “too long” and used the hashtag “#DownWithDays.”
Kristian Alfonso, Days of Our Lives
Chris Haston/NBC
In July, Alfonso told Entertainment Tonight she was “taken aback” when Days producers told her they were planning to write her off the show for four to five months, and she decided it was time to exit the show for good.
