With the highly-anticipated returns of Finola Hughes (Anna Devane) on this week’s June 24 episode of General Hospital, Steve Burton’s (Jason Morgan) upcoming return on July 13, which also serves as the ABC daytime drama’s 16,000 episode, things are about to fire on all cylinders in the story, as noted today by series star, Maurice Benard (Sonny Corinthos).

On Father’s Day, the three-time Daytime Emmy-winning actor and mental health activist took to his Instagram and expressed in a video that he has some unbelievable upcoming senes with the aforementioned Burton and Hughes. Add to that Nazneen Contractor (Justine Turner) and Rick Hearst (Ric Lansing), where Benard gave credit where credit is due to the GH writing team, which is led by co-head writers, Elizabeth Korte and Chris Van Etten..

In this video, Benard said, “I just want to get on here and say that I did some work with Steve Burton, Finola Hughes, Rick Hearst, Nazneen Contractor, and they’re all just fantastic. Truly fantastic. But, I want to say the writing was just exceptional. It truly was. It was exceptional. So, thankful for that kind of writing. I know writers don’t get the credit a lot, but I just want to say to the General Hospital writing team, keep rolling!”

GENERAL HOSPITAL PREVIEW

So now the question becomes, with a major tease like that, what is about to go down between Sonny, Anna, Jason, Justine and Ric? Will we finally get to the end of the line for Sidwell (Carlo Rota), as previously teased by the GH co-head writers? Will we learn what happened to Jason and Anna, fully? Will Justine and Sonny becomes closer or stop their liaisons? And what of Ric? Will he be true blue to his brother or double-cross him? There is a lot at stake as we move further into the summer and one that looks like it could be one of the more exciting ones in years!

FINOLA HUGHES CONFIRMED AMAZING SCENES WITH MAURICE BENARD

As a punctuation point to his video, Benard also shared this written message in the post: “I just did some wonderful scenes with Steve Burton, Rick Hearst, Finola Hughes and Nazneen Contractor and  and unbelievable writing, freaking amazing scenes that you will see in the near future on General Hospital.” In fact, Finola Hughes jumped in the post comment thread and responded, “I loved our scenes so much xxx”

Fans will most likely see all the scenes Benard referred to later in July, since GH tapes approximately six weeks ahead of air.

So, are you excited to see what Maurice is talking about? Are you hyped for what’s to come on GH? Any clue on what you think will go down between the main characters on the soap with the returns of Anna Devane and Jason Morgan to the mix? Weigh-in via the comment section below.

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In a surprise move, Daytime Emmy winner, Chad Duell (ex-Michael Corinthos, GH) is getting ready to unveil a new chapter of his career in music.

The former GH star, where he played the son of Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) and Carly Spencer (Laura Wright) for 15 years, has announced his new single, “If You Need Me” will drop on Friday, June 26. The single is now available for pre-order on Spotify and major music streaming platforms and is distributed by DistroKid.

Taking to his Instagram story over the weekend, to announce the pre-save of his new single, Chad expressed, “I’ll make a full post about what I’ve been up to and my music once it goes live next week, but you can pre-save my first single so it goes straight to your Spotify once it drops next week.”

Photo: CDuellIG

SINCE LEAVING GENERAL HOSPITAL

Previously, since his departure from the ABC soap opera. Chad starred alongside Zach Mendez in the world premiere of of Yum Yum at Annapolis, a new play written by Bruce Reisman. Duell last appeared on General Hospital on the January 21, 2025 episode.

The part was recast with Rory Gibson who debuted as the new Michael in May of 2025 during the Nurses’ Ball episodes and who has remained in the role since that time.

In an interview earlier this year on The Able Show, Duell said on his decision to exit the soap opera, “I was blessed to be part of that (show) for as long as I have, but what happens sometimes is if you’re doing the same thing, especially in a creative field for such a long time, you can get a little burnt out in a way. It can make you a little depressed, so that’s kind of what happened. On top of that, I had other things going on in my life at the time. My father passed away recently and I just needed a reset. So, I stepped away. A lot of times you have to go through some stuff to really step into that next level. I needed to kind of feel uncomfortable.”

So, what type of musical genre will Chad’s new song be? Country? Pop? Rock? Dance/Club? Something else? Let us know your thoughts via the comment section below, and if you are eager to hear the new single next week via the comment section below.

On recent episodes of General Hospital, acting PCPD commissioner, Dante Falconeri (Dominic Zamprogna) was the last to know when his ex-wife Lulu (Alexa Havins), his cop/friend “Nathan,” (Ryan Paevey) and his son, Rocco (Finn Carr) kept him in the dark from learning that Rocco actually shot WSB director, Ross Cullum (Andrew Hawkes). That, set off a chain of events leading to Rocco joining Britt Westbourne (Kelly Thiebaud) and going on the run from Port Charles.

However, what led to everyone being so secretive and keeping the truth from Dante stems, in part, to what happened back in 2010. In story, Michael Corinthos (then played by Chad Duell) was brutally assaulted and rape by his prison inmate, Carter (Josh Wingate). Michael went to prison when his brother, Dante, then a PCPD detective, forced Michael to testify in court about killing his stepmother, Claudia Zacchara (Sarah Brown). That testimony resulted in Michael being sentenced to prison for manslaughter.

In early 2011, Michael admitted out loud to Jason (Steve Burton) for the first time that he was raped. The guilt of that situation has plagued Dante for years, and fast-forward 16 years later, it’s still very much alive in Dante’s character life as explained by Dominic Zamprogna in his recent interview on the Michael Fairman Channel.

Courtesy/ABC

RORY GIBSON RECAST WAS PERFECT TIME TO BRING BACK THE STORY POINT

Zamprogna spoke of Dante’s son current plight, and how it dovetails into the past for the acting police commissioner. “The situation with Rocco is just this awful scenario that this kid is in and wanting to try and do the best for him. The other thing I liked too was from the other people’s perspectives of Dante in the past, he kind of did right by the law, not by the people, or put too much faith in the law, and expected it to work out for the people he loved, and it didn’t. So, it gave them a reason for keeping things from him as well.”

The five-time Daytime Emmy nominee shared it’s important to remember things in the history of the character you play. When GH decided to recast the role of Michael Corinthos with Rory Gibson on-screen in May of 2025, it was the perfect time to remind viewers of what happened all those years ago.

“The idea that when you’re on a show this long, I do think about those elements because there’s so much story. The scenes that I think of immediately with the Michael situation was with Chad gone, and then Rory came in. They (the writers) chose that moment to kind of literally say in the dialogue when we were at the Quartermaines, ‘You’ve changed since you came back from Europe, and you’re a different guy and you’re darker.’ I think I said all these things. Frank Valentini (executive producer, GH) calls (Rory’s version) ‘Dark Michael.’ It’s true.”

Courtesy/ABC

DANTE’S GUILT OVER MICHAEL’S BRUTAL PRISON ASSAULT LINGERS

“That was the first time my character brought that up in what had happened to Michael so long ago. I’d love to play those beats more often. You can’t beat that to death, because it was 16 years ago, but you also can’t act like it never happened. Sometimes in the world that we live in, the soap world, you do act like things don’t happen because how could people carry on with that kind of guilt, you know? Every time I looked at Michael, Dante would feel responsible for the atrocity that happened to him. So, there’s a balance. You can’t think about it every time, but you definitely have to acknowledge it. This was the perfect time to acknowledge it with the character of Michael because of the recast.”

Now over the last several months, Dante was kept from the truth all stemming back to that moment. Zamprogna recalled, “It was the first kind of domino that fell in bringing back that history. Then, you had Britt coming back and that brought back that history of the embryo with Dante and Lulu. It was fun to be able to play pissed-off with these people who I love. So, you got to play the love underneath and the anger on top, and it was all because of his past. So, it all kind of brought things back and it completed something.”

CAN LULU AND DANTE FIND ROCCO AND BRITT IN TIME?

At the end of Friday’s June 19 cliffhanger, Dante and Lulu learned from “Nathan” where Rocco and Britt are hiding out and take off to find their son. How will that go? Can the execs get along for the sake of their son? Stay tuned.

In case you missed our conversation with Dominic Zamprogna  you can check it out in full below.

Do you believe, given what happened with Michael Corinthos in the past, everyone had the right to hide what happened to Rocco from Dante? What do you remember from the harrowing story of Michael’s rape in prison by Carter? Share your thoughts via the comment section below.