General Hospital
Kelly Monaco Notes ‘General Hospital’ Alter-Ego Sam McCall Became a “Character I Didn’t Recognize, Let Alone the Audience”
General Hospital’s 21-year veteran, and one of the longtime leading women on the show, Kelly Monaco, has left the building after the news last Friday she had taped her final episode as Sam McCall.
Monday, October 1st would have marked her 21-year anniversary since she debuted on the soap opera back in 2003 following her other soap-famous role of Livvie Locke on the GH spinoff, Port Charles.
Monaco’s GH departure was reportedly “storyline-dictated,” while others have continued sharing other speculations and online scenarios, since Kelly has not yet, publicly offered up any official statement. Last week, when Kelly wrapped her run, her mother Carmina took to X and shared some heartfelt sentiments, on and for, her daughter’s last day, and the culmination of two decades of her body of work for the ABC soap opera.

Photo: JPI
However, on Tuesday, several media outlets were reporting a response from Monaco to comments and remarks made on a Soap Hub post on Instagram in a related story about Monaco’s former GH co-star Greg Vaughan (ex-Lucky, now Eric, DAYS), where the actor shared his thoughts on his time working with Kelly.
In the IG post thread, some disparaging remarks about the reason Monaco was let-go, and in particular from one of the posters, who said that Kelly had “no primary roles,” prompted Kelly herself to respond. While some may be negative towards her, Monaco’s true fans have continued their online petition campaign to bring her back to the soap and have more than 16,000 signatures on top of taking out a billboard in Times Square and more to call attention to their battle cry for Kelly.

Photo: ABC
On the IG thread in question, Kelly responded, “‘No primary role’… do your homework. When Billy Miller was fired (as Drew in 2019), Sam’s storyline stopped. Stripping Sam of every characteristic she had. Something I worked for decades to build… Slowly dismantling her, into a character that I did not recognize, let alone the audience. Call it what you will… retaliation at it finest. I will give a proper statement. The truth will set you free.”
All this, leading viewers to surmise how the character of Sam will be written-off the show in the weeks ahead, and what Monaco may plan on saying when the time is right on her side of the story, after playing an extremely popular character on the iconic soap opera for two decades.
So, what do you think about the words Kelly relayed to a poster when speaking of her exit from GH? Comment below.

Photo: SoapHubIG
If this is the way frank treats actors who dare to speak up it really makes me want to stop watching.
Billy Miller’s mother has said that Billy was fired for standing up for Kelly and paid the price.What is the matter with her other co-stars in that Billy was the only one to stand up for her?
Makes me really wonder about the shows three leads who have considerable clout and could have done something to help Kelly out all these years from this.
There have been several actors who were let go over the last year and all have said very positive things about Valentini. Roger Howarth and Michael Easton, who followed him over to GH from OLTL both sung his praises. Others, who have medical conditions or other personal issues have also spoke about his generosity and supportive nature. I find it hard to believe he is the only villain in this issue.
They always say there are three sides to a story. His, hers and the truth. I don’t think we will ever know the real truth about everything.
Hmmm. Makes me think the the blame lays at her feet.
I think it lies with frank and Disney
I think a highly successful 21 year run on a successful television show is a very big achievement and something not a lot of people get! Not everyone loved and revered the character of Sam!!! Her death story is going to be bracing and polarizing, something GH does very well!!
simply disappointed at GH, as a fan I don’t know what else to say, the writers, new, old whatever incarnation of writing team are just horrible, they should be fired, and FV, what is going on behind the scenes? why did you fire Kelly, and appearantly the late Billy Miller? the drew characters is not working, there’s nothing ab0out him that’s appealing.
I rather enjoy GH right now
Ditto! I’m excited to see some of my favorite characters return and also like some of the new characters on the show.
Really good actresses turn “s**t into sugar”. Just look at some of the horrible storylines Maura West has had as Ava through her time at GH.
Yes, some of the stories for Sam the past few years haven’t been good, but why did Lindsay Hartley make an impact whenever she subbed for Kelly?
Her suggesting the character changed after Billy Miller was let go doesn’t add up. Burton returned to GH in the fall of 2017. It was a few months after when Sam was reunited with his Jason. Miller (as Drew) stayed on the show until summer of 2019. Sam went through the whole Shiloh mess while Drew was dealing with Oscar and his eventual demise. Once Sam reunited with original Jason, there wasn’t much interaction between she and Drew.
Kelly quit kissing the ring of the three pets they were why I quit watching . I had no idea they fired Billy Miller I thought he quit. I personally hope she gets a job making triple her salary.
Her behavior appears to be unprofessional.
B.S!
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out! Sounds disgruntled to me. I never have been a fan of Sam’s. I do like her when Lindsay Hartley is in the role! Kelly is a fine actress but I don’t think she has been happy at GH for a while. Time for her to move on. I am sure she will land on her feet and land a roll elsewhere. I’m sure I will like her there as well.
Shame that this is how the show treats longtime actors I was very upset to see them get rid of Michael Easton and Roger Howarth this is no way to run a series… first you force us to have Peter August… then Nina and you want to get rid of Sam and keep Nuttallia and Nina ewww
I personally don’t believe her “version” of the events. I don’t think not having your contract renewed is exactly the same thing as being fired. I think once Steve Burton decided to come back there was t much use for Billy anymore. And yeah Kelly is biased in what happened. Personally I never thought she was a great actress. She hasn’t been on much and honestly hasn’t been missed.
To my knowledge, Kelly was essentially responsible for Frank having hired Billy Miller- as Jason- in the first place. So of course she had all sorts of opinion on the fact when Billy Miller left no matter what the circumstances. And since the two had whatever sort of relationship outside the studio that they had, she never accepted that much of the audience didn’t think Billy was right for the role of Jason, and wanted Burton back. So that was the first thing she resented. In 2012 I saw an interview with Burton and Kelly, and she couldn’t have sung Steve’s praises more effusively. That was just before he left for Y&R. But when Billy was pushed aside for his return, Kelly couldn’t have been further from that. She didn’t want Burton to be the real Jason, she didn’t want her character to reconnect with him, she didn’t want anything to do with him. And she couldn’t get beyond it, with her acting or anything else. And this last time around… those GH photos of Jason with Carly and Sam on each arm… Kelly simply looks miserable. I’m sure that behind the scenes she was lobbying whenever and wherever she felt she needed to keep her character away from his, and I imagine it just got tiresome. Especially when the alternative was for Steve to be paired with Laura Wright, and they have so little chemistry it almost shows up as anti-chemistry. Certainly romantically.
Soaps ebbs and flow. The GH of Ms. Monaco’s era is not the same GH that captured my attention and heart once upon a time. Changes in producers and writers change characters’ motivations, situations, value. I never connected to Sam but the mob mess and all the implausible resurrections never set well with me. A mob daughter may not be long lived and Sam’s death (?) may be a catalyst for new plot directions and improvement to GH overall.
Kelly nailed her response
General Hospital
‘General Hospital’s’ Dominic Zamprogna Shares He Was ‘Happy to Hear’ of The Triangle Storyline Developing Between Dante/Elizabeth/Ric

General Hospital’s Dominic Zamprogna (Dante Falconeri) opened up about the burgeoning love triangle forming between his Port Charles alter-go, Elizabeth Webber (Rebecca Herbst) and Ric Lansing (Rick Hearst) after recently aired scenes, plus his hopes for the future of a Dante and Liz pairing, during his appearance on the Sunday, April 23 edition of the That’s Awesome podcast with Steve Burton (Jason Morgan) and Bradford Anderson (Spinelli).
On last week’s episodes of GH, Ric has made the decision that he wanted to propose to his ex-wife, only when he showed up at Elizabeth’s front door, he misread the scenario he walked in with Liz tending to Dante’s injured leg from the softball game. From there, the legal eagle’s jealous streak is reemerging which may cause him to act out and do something unforgivable, or will he take the high road? Stay tuned.
Speaking with Steve Burton and Bradford Anderson about where Elizabeth stands in the annals of the long-running soap, Zamprogna said, “She’s up there with Steve and Maurice (Maurice Benard) as one of the most legacy-filled people on the show.”

Courtesy/ABC
HOW DANTE AND ELIZABETH CAME ABOUT
Dominic jokes it’s a far cry for where Dante and Elizabeth previously, recalling, “We had some scenes together years ago and we were both laughing. Becky’s like, ‘Well, I guess we’re not going be paired up anytime soon.’ I remember we laughed immediately after they yelled ‘cut,”‘and said to each other, ‘Well, so much for that!'”
Fast-forward to early 2025 and as Zamprogna remembered it, “Elizabeth Korte (co-head writer, GH) came up to me at the General Hospital Christmas party, and I think it was a year and a half ago and she said, ‘We’re going to have you in scenes with Elizabeth,’ My internal monologue is going, ‘I’m not with Lulu (Alexa Havins) anymore and Sam’s (Kelly Monaco) gone, so maybe they want to see if this works.’ I didn’t want to get scenes with Becky and try to find the chemistry. I just wanted to play whatever honestly was written and came across for both of us and hope it was what people liked, and I don’t know if it is … or not.”
Knowing how beloved Elizabeth is to the GH faithfuls, Zamprogna added, “She got a big fan base with Ric … and a big fan base with with Jason … and you know, you’re going to piss somebody off. But, didn’t Ric drug Elizabeth and put Carly in a panic room?”

Photo: ABC
DANTE AND ELIZABETH PAIRING COULD STIR UP STORY FOR OTHERS IN PORT CHARLES
In closing, Dominic felt that the wide-reaching tentacles of a Dante and Elizabeth relationship is something he is 100% down for. “The triangle thing; I was happy to hear it was with Ric and her, because I felt it’s important to have her the top of it as opposed to Dante, Lulu and Elizabeth.”
Zamprogna added, “When you get into relationships on a soap, things seem to fizzle out a little bit, The buildup is what’s the fun part, and the getting to know each other, and the people who are affected by this coming together. When with this case it’s going to affect: Ric, Sonny, Lulu. There’s so much more story here. To me, it’s going to be a fun story to play.”
You can check out Dominic’s visit to That’s Awesome with Steve and Bradford below.
Now weigh-in: Are you rooting for Dante and Liz, or Dante and Ric at this juncture of the story, or neither guy for Elizabeth? Let us know your thoughts and picks via the comment section.
General Hospital
GH and OLTL Alum Patrick J. Gibbons Reveals the Story Behind Writing Trina’s Song on ‘General Hospital’ (Exclusive)

At the conclusion of today’s August 21 episode of General Hospital, Trina Robinson (Tabyana Ali) sings a lullaby to baby Dez, that went into a montage to close out the episode as her father Curtis Ashford (Donnell Turner) reports to Pentonville and winds up in his jail cell.
However, in a fun fact, the song entitled, “A Lonely Heart To Give” was actually written by none other than former One Life to Live and General Hospital actor, Patrick J. Gibbons.
Daytime fans first met Gibbons as Sam Manning on One Life to Live. At the time, when he started on the soap, he was just 5-years-old. Gibbons played the part from 2010-2013 on ABC and Prospect Park’s editions of the show. Fast-forward to 2018, Gibbons shows up on General Hospital as Wyatt Hoover, the scout who seemed always be injured, but in the thick of the drama. Patrick had appeared on GH multiple times as Wyatt including: 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023.

Photo: ABC
FROM HIS GRANDMOTHER’S DEATH CAME THE INSPIRATION FOR HIS SONG
Now in 2026, General Hospital fans are getting to learn about another side of Gibbons’ talent as a songwriter and guitar player after “A Lonely Heart to Give” debuted today! Michael Fairman TV caught up with Patrick, who is now a senior at Penn State entering his final year as a finance major, to get the back-story of how his song wound up on GH!
Gibbons explained he wrote the song in honor of his grandmother who passed away a few years ago with whom he was, very, very close with. “Randomly, my grandmother had a downfall and passed away during the second semester of my sophomore year. I was in my dorm a lot and I was just playing with my guitar. And at the time, I was really into finger-style playing. I wrote the lyric and music to it (with a little help from my guitar teacher Lou), and my mom showed the rough demo to Frank Valentini (EP, General Hospital). He’s like an uncle to me. Frank loved it so much he said, “Finish that up. I want to hear the whole thing, and I want it on the show.”
MAKING MUSIC FOR GENERAL HOSPITAL
Gibbons and his parents took the next steps! “So now, all we needed was a female voice, because I thought that would fit the song well,” Patrick shared. “At the golf club we go to my parents were at a dinner. They liked the singer that was performing and spoke to her about the song, and she says she would like to bring it to her ‘boss’ who ended up being Eric Bazilian of the Hooters fame!” (Bazilian also wrote the smash hit song “One of Us” for Joan Osborne).
Next, “We went in the studio and recorded it and the song came together and it was beautiful. We loved it. They loved it at General Hospital and now they’re putting it the show and they are coming in with a piano, instead of a guitar. Paul Glass, the GH musical director, has been keeping us updated over the last six months of how it was coming along, and when it would air, and how GH put their own arrangement to it. I can’t wait to see and hear what they did with it.”

Photo: JPI
PATRICK’S ONE LIFE TO LIVE FAMILY
Everyone knows that the One Life to Live extended family share a very tight bond, and Patrick said he does stay in touch with a few of his former One Life to Live co-stars, especially those from the Manning family! “I stayed in touch with Kassie DePaiva (ex-Blair) and sent her little videos here and there. She was like my second mom for five years. We keep in contact with Kristen Alderson (ex-Starr) over X the most, and she can’t believe how big I’ve gotten. Like, none of them can! (laughs). I also loved working with Roger Howarth (ex-Todd) and Trevor St. John (ex-Todd and Victor Jr.), and to me since I was so young, they were just my friends, ‘Roger and Trevor,’ not Todd Manning or Victor Jr.”
It was a trip to California and a visit to Port Charles that ultimately led to Gibbons second soap role of Wyatt Hoover. Patrick explains, “In 2016, Frank Valentini invited us out to Los Angeles to visit the set of General Hospital. I think he heard me say, ‘This is so much fun. I miss being on the set.’ He goes, ‘You should come out. I’ll bring you on the show. We can make you a character.'”
A few years later, Patrick’s dream became a reality! “Then, by the summer of 2018, I was playing Wyatt, the scout, and shared scenes with Wes Ramsey (Peter August), and the best was when I shared a scene with Roger Howarth and Michael Easton (ex-John, OLTL and ex-Silas, Finn et al, GH), it was like chemistry from the old days.”

Photo: PGibbons
IT’S ALL IN THE NUMBERS
As to his future aspirations, it’s a career in the finance game that has piqued Gibbons’ real-life interest. But never say never to a return to acting. Patrick explained, “I’ve always enjoyed numbers. And on top of that, one of the biggest parts of finance is being personable and outgoing.”
He continued, “That’s one of the greatest skills I developed growing up. I really love the markets. I’m super interested. I’m never going to close the door to acting. I’m always open to that because I just love it so much. It’s such a great art.”
Take note! If there are any investment bankers or private equity folks among the GH faithful looking for a young analyst next year, Patrick’s DMs are open. You can find him on X at @PatrickJGibbons.”
So, what did you think of the song sung by Trina on today’s GH that was written by Patrick J. Gibbons? Did you enjoy Patrick’s performances as One Life’s Sam and GH’s Wyatt? Would you like to see him back on GH at some point? Let us know via the comment section.
General Hospital
‘General Hospital’ Alum Chad Duell Admits That He Didn’t Expect the Role of Michael Corinthos to be Recast, and Would Consider Working on Another Soap (Exclusive)

Chad Duell, the Daytime Emmy-winning actor, who stepped away from the pivotal role of Michael Corinthos on General Hospital, opened up about: his previous decision to leave the series after nearly 15 years, where’s he’s at now after time away from the demands of a daytime soap opera, and took a stroll down memory lane with some of Michael’s most-acclaimed storyline during his run, during a livestream chat on August 19 on You Tube’s Michael Fairman Channel.
Viewers last saw Duell on-screen as Michael in January of 2025, and with his successor in the role, Rory Gibson making his debut at the GH Nurses’ Ball in episodes that aired later in May. It was clear that during the conversation, Chad was a bit surprised that the GH brass decided to recast him when he thought he was just taking some much needed time off.
Burn-out of the daily grind of being on a soap was definitely a part of Chad’s decision to take a break. Duell explained “People know when you’re doing something for so long or your character is kind of in the same place for so long or doing the same stuff over and over again, you do get a a little burnt out, you get a little stiff, stale, a little stiff at times. I didn’t want that to be any sort of lasting impression. I have 15 years of a body of work of I’ve done on that show, which is fantastic.”

Photo: ABC
WHILE CHAD WAS AWAY GH RECAST MICHAEL CORINTHOS WITH RORY GIBSON
Chad shared, his mindset when leaving GH was, “I’m taking some time away, we’ll see what happens.” Then he added, “Obviously, they decided to go in a different direction with Michael when I was gone. I didn’t think they were going to bring somebody back in my place. But you know, it’s the business. You never know what can happen.”
Duell also shared he has not watched a single episode of General Hospital since he left the series, but now feels he reenergized following the loss of his father and stepping away from the GH, “I’m in a place now mentally, where I’m ready to sink my teeth into it again.”

Courtesy/ABC
Even though he is no longer Michael on GH, Chad was very happy with his final storyline where Michael was set on fire when a bomb exploded at Sonny’s (Maurice Benard) penthouse. “It was fun to put him in a dangerous situation, because I was wanting Michael to be in something scary instead of trying to be a hero character or just things happening around him, but to be the center point of tragedy happening to him. (I always saw) Michael as the heart of the (Corinthos) family.”
When Michael was badly burned the show chose not burn his face, which normally a soap does when they are recasting role and switching actors. Chad weighed-in, “They didn’t burn my face because I told Frank Valentini (EP, GH) I’m willing to come back. It was just a little bit of a break. So, I assumed that if they would have burned my face, they could have brought somebody back looking different than me… if that’s what their plan was.”

Courtesy/ABC
MEMORABLE MICHAEL STORYLINES
One of Chad’s most memorable performances was the in the storyline of Michael’s rape while he was sentenced to prison in 2010 and the confession of it in 2011. “It was so well-written and I was very nervous,” recalled Chad. “When I get really nervous about something, it ends up being really good when I do it, because it just means I care a lot about it”
“I have to put a lot of effort and work into it, and I really want it to be good. I was working with Dominic Zamprogna (Dante) and Steve Burton (Jason) a lot during those scenes, and Laura Wright (Carly). It was great working with Steve and Dominic, especially, during that storyline.
A NEW SOAP ROLE FOR CHAD?
As to a future soap opera role, Chad is open to the idea and would love to jump back in to a juicy role, “I know people over at The Bold and the Beautiful, and The Young and the Restless. They know that if they’re interested, I would love to come in for a screen test or something, and they can see what I’m doing.”
Meanwhile, Chad has been busy putting out new music under the moniker Duelly and during the interview he explains how he creates his EDM tracks and much more. You can stream his latest single, Static in the Quiet Room on Spotify, Apple Music and You Tube Music.
You can check out the full conversation with Chad Duell below.
Now let us know: what show would you like to see Chad cast on down the line? BTG, DAYS, B&B, Y&R, or a new role on GH? What did you think of his thoughts on the casting switch while he was away in the role of Michael? What was your favorite Michael storyline during Chad’s 15-year run on the ABC soap opera? Let us know via the comment section.
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