Days Of Our Lives
Raven Bowens is the New Chanel on DAYS
There has been a casting switcheroo at Days of our Lives. Precious Way is out in the role of Chanel Dupree and the part had been recast.
Way debuted on-screen back in March of 2021, but now comes word, first via Jason 47’s Facebook page, that Chanel will be played by actress Raven Bowens.
According to Soap Opera Digest, look for Bowens to first air on-screen on the July 6th episode. Apparently, she has been taping at the DAYS set since April.
Raven has previously appeared on All Rise, Insecure, The New Edition Story and Future Man.
You can follow her on Instagram here.
So, what do you think of the Chantal switch? Comment below.
Welcome Raven! I hope you can dig deep and delve into the core of who Chanel is now, and who she wants to become. I will say this again… I am still not feeling the character of Aunt Paulina played by Jackee Harry (why does she have to chuckle/laugh like after every line? It’s very irritating…) and the character of Chanel (currently played by Precious Way)… and her recent discovery of wanting to build a bakery business… has been somewhat interesting for the character. Though, Precious has good chemistry with the young woman who plays Allie Horton. Allie lights up more around Chanel it seems, and gets that “party girl” to come out and Allie smiles more in her presence. Anyways, the way the DAYS writers work, they do so much damage to old and new characters (Example: Zander remains in great pain thinking that Sarah (Linsey Godfrey), left town with Rex… TO Zander working a deal with Chanel in some scam short-lived marriage with Chanel for $10 million from Momma Paulina. And, then Chanel has eyes for Allie and then has eyes on her brother-in-law, towel-dropping Eli in the kitchen (twice) and makes immature and inappropriate remarks to Lani about how hot and fine her man is. The point that I am trying to make is that since March of this year, Chanel has been darn trouble – all the way… now we are to believe – after a few months in Salem, Chanel really wants to open this bakery with Allie? This new character changed that much??? And so quickly? The development of Chanel is just a fail on the part of the writers and I don’t know why a Recast was in order, nor do I want to speculate to that, but I hope Raven can FIND Chanel, right now… she’s lost, and Momma/Auntie Paulina is a dismal failure. I wish DAYS just kept Jackee on-board as reoccurring, though it seems that recently, that Jackee is now full-time. (Again, why does she have to do that chuckle/laugh like after each line and rolling her eyes all over the place? I’ll never understand why DAYS bumped her to full-time. I’d rather us see more of Valerie who is an established character… return to Salem by the lovely actress, Vanessa Williams (I). I liked the Valerie pairing with Abe so much more… and Eli’s relationship with his Mother was a very special one, too. Why is Valerie not around (except for “visits”)? Anyways, wishing Raven the best. Perhaps, one day, I’ll grow to care about Chanel.
Jeremy, that’s the way Jackee always performs. I mean, she’s not a great actress, more of a one trick pony.
Not upset by this switch; look, Precious Way, for me, was just not someone I enjoyed seeing in the role of Chanel. I am hoping Raven Bowens does well in the role!
Agreed, Scott—-so tired of unnerving Chanel. That constant Cheshire cat smile is so irritating.
I, too, hope the recast has a more grounded outlook on life, in general—-and not such a sardonic, almost contemptuos approach towards everythin and most people with whom she enteracts.
This, out-of-the-blue, irrational brainstorm of opening a bakery is so lame. Is it to con Allie somehow?
She comes off as pushy and as a bully, albeit I think it’s a front to conceal her own insecurities. Perhaps, that should be explored as a storyline. Allow the real Chanel to emerge.
The way she is behaving now tells me something’s afoot—and, it “ain’t ” good news.
Oh, yuk, I have to change channels every time her mouth starts. Her acting is so fake
I hear you, Carol. Chanel leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Her words are too honeyed and her expressions too sweet.
Gee, I was just getting used to this Chanel.
Apparently the current Chanel got a new job. Good luck. She was okay, but I hope the recast is a better actress.
Precious Way had the job prior to Days of Our Lives, however, due to COVID, production on the job was delayed and she was able to take the role of Chanel.
I am curious to know why this switch was made? At first I wasn’t happy with Precious Way in the role but she has won me over recently, her performances definitely improved. Perhaps there were behind the scenes reasons for the casting change? Here’s hoping Raven Bowens is great in the role going forward!
Richard, I share your sentiments. Precious Way won me over pretty quickly. And I am curious about the reason for the casting change. Mr. Fairman doesn’t always volunteer such information (e.g., Lindsey Godfrey’s departure as Sarah Horton). Surely, he is well connected enough to know.
I will say this: although I was unhappy upon learning years ago that a new actor would be playing the role of Chad DiMera, Billy Flynn has been exceptional and won me over almost instantly.
Precious Way booked a job prior to Days of Our Lives and chose that job, however, due to COVID, production on the job was delayed and she was able to take the role of Chanel.
She landed another role in a TV sitcom. Good luck in your new role.
Who knows? She looks a little old for the role compared to Allie. But, I’m being more patient with Days these days.
Funny you should bring up age. Moto—-at least Precious is in that range of age group.
Look at Kate!! What are these writers thinking? It’s one thing for a virile younger man getting involved with an older woman ( in this case much, much older), but there is a young, sexy, vibrant female in the mix.
It boggles the mind for TPTB to assume the viewer accepts the fact that Kate has a chance with Jake. Not this viewer!! It’s not for money; he’s no gigolo—-furthermore, this pity party thing going on is so off key!! Feeling sorry be damned—not realistic. Even for a soap.
On one hand there’s a 70-year old woman ( no disrespect—my grandmother is as spirited and sprite as can be, but, she is not delusional), and on the other hand there’s Gabi. In plain English ( LOL), Jake is a wuss and a loser.
Now, Kate is making so many blunders —-she must have such a keen sense of smell—Grrrr—everyone serms to accept that excuse. She can smell not only flowers but also people, it seems.
I have a feeling Kate is not pulling the wool over Anna’s eyes!!
And, Chad? Who died and made him the model of honesty and righteousness?
The same can be applied to Tara Locke on Y&R ( albeit she’s not decades older than Kyle), where Nikki referred to her as a girl. A girl? The woman looks in her forties—could pass as Kyle’s mother.
Pardon my rant. LOL
I’m thinking that maybe Brandon Barash asked for the Kate & Jake pairing. If you saw him when he was on GH, most of his pairings were with women old enough to be his mother. So either he has a “type”… or ReRon (who also wrote most of those pairings on GH) just thinks he does!
Really? Never crossed my mind—I guess, I didn’t realize that actors were able to make such requests. Lauren is just not an older woman, she’s an oooolder woman. She’s like 70. That’s not old by today’s standard—-so, I will grant you that there may be men who go for ultra-experienced/much older women……must have a lot of energy to keep up with a muuuch younger man.
I always thought that Nancy Grahn (GH) was too old for William deVry—-but Lauren and Brandon surpass even them!!
Oh Celia, THANKS for mentioning the exquisite
Mr. DeVry. How I miss Julian, before they made him lower than low. He’s too young for me, too, but one can certainly imagine. And I do imagine. By the way, I never cared for the Kate and Jake pairing. Just seems seedy.
PS—–Kate can’t feel any peace in her future—just think, Satan—she will worry about every young woman who happens to cross Jake’s path. Oy vey and mamma mia!!
Celia, my Friend, please allow me to politely challenge you on these points. I totally understand what you’re saying here, but it could be construed as ageist — and I highly doubt that is your intent. Perhaps you simply don’t like the character of Kate and see these storylines as ludicrous. Frankly, a man of Jake’s age dating a woman of Kate’s age is unusual in real life, no doubt. But what is the expression? Love is love? Or is it, Lust is lust?
The writers are quite cognizant of Kate’s age relative to Jake’s and are giving the character plenty of angst, insecurity, and self-doubt over that age difference. What gets me is that Kate is supposed to be the mother of Billie Reed, though she is about 10 years older in real life.
I am a big fan of Kate’s. She’s one of my favorite characters. A case can be made that Kate is less devious and destructive than Gabi and, thus, preferable. Both women are attractive. I think it’s no accident the way younger woman Gabi dresses in these tight-fitting, revealing outfits. And I admittedly have found Gabi to be increasingly amusing.
Anyway, thanks for letting me go on about this. Take care, Celia!
LOL, James,
Here I am —-no more replying between classes—-School’s OUT!! Yeay!!
Go ahead, my friend—throw the gauntlet, LOL—I will always accept your comments, whether we agree or not. You are the best—-and a gentleman.
I don’t think I’m ageist—-I can’t see how such relationships could work. —for me, ageism is a senseless concept because aging is part of life—-it is avprocess—it touches each and every one of us, if we are so lucky to live so long. No escaping it.
I, too, love Kate—-always have—love her mode of dress, her sassiness and eccentricity—her persona, in general.
It’s puzzling —-she has been so good lately, staying out of trouble, when suddenly she’s fallen back into her old ( pardon the pun, LOL) devious machinations.
I was really targeting the writers more than the character. She plays a part—-
She’s almost thirty years older than her counterpart—-it strikes a discordant note with me.
Perhaps I am trapped under the influence of my in-you-face grandmother. She’s a character, let me tell you!! She’s very similar to Kate—-in her way of dress etc.—- she’s a 60’s babe—-still married to my grandfather.
We occasionally watch our soaps together—-when I’m with her, I can’t help but laugh so hard with tears streaming down my face, as she throws outrageous words around in her Highlander Scottish brogue. She doesn’t even try to be funny. She just is.
Just yesterday, as we were watching, she was loudly scolding Kate’s panting after a “boy” -“Thu bawface. Ach, yer off yer heid””—and so much more, James—–I cannot repeat it in public.
Friendly and polite debates are good for the soul, my friend. Truly liberating!!
Celia, thanks for your kind reply! Fun reading! Nice to see that you enjoy Kate, too. What hampers me with DOOL is that I am not a long-time viewer (maybe 8 or 9 years), so I don’t know all the history. Funny, how I can give Kate a pass over all her misdeeds but won’t even consider it for GH’s Sonny — I know, don’t get me started on that one… Maybe even I am mesmerized by Kate’s beauty… (Insert joke here.)
It’s also nice to hear about your grandmother. She sounds a lot like my grandmother, who always acted younger than her age and had a mischievous sense of humor.
Great chatting with you, Friend!
Take 2! If you don’t like what you see onscreen, change the Chanel!
Good one, James!
4ever DAYS, I just saw this. Thank you, Friend!
that’s to bad,what is wrong with the one we have now?
I like the old Chanel but welcome the new one and hopefully she will stir things up because this show is becoming so boring and nambly pambly and everyone whining about their feelings and how politcally correct they need to be. Where is the action and adventure and romance? This is so boring I am ready to watch General Hospital instead.
Mark C.
Don’t watch G.H instead, just watch it, it’s the best and most exciting of the four.
Replacements are sometimes good, sometimes bad, especially the anticipation. I remember when they replaced Ciara, we were so lucky to be rid of “stick girl”. Hopefully, this time will be good too.
Poor girl’s head is out of proportion: huge forehead, all features squashed together at the bottom of her face above her tiny chin. Hope I can get used to her. I will miss Precious!
I agree. Days could have done better.
Days Of Our Lives
‘Days of Our Lives’ Favorites Making Returns: Alison Sweeney, Christie Clark, Chandler Massey and Bryan Dattilo
Great news for Days of Our Lives fans, now that Ryan Quan is co-head writer of the long-running soap opera. Coming in June of 2027 (since DAYS tapes ten or so months ahead), you can look forward to the returns of Alison Sweeney (Sami Brady), Christie Clark (Carrie Brady), Chandler Massey (Will Horton) and Bryan Dattilo (Lucas Horton).
The foursome is back on set and began last week to tape their upcoming story arc, according to TV Insider. As to what exactly is going on that brings sister Sami and Carrie’s history back up, as well as Will and Lucas’ is only being teased at this time, but suffice to say, it should be intriguing.
Alison Sweeney explained on being back on set, “It was a lot of dialogue and emotion, but with all the best actors to work opposite, we fell into it as if no time had passed. It was really wonderful.”
Photo: JPI
As to working with the longstanding rivalry of Sami and Carrie, Alison added on working with Clark, “So, it really does feel like we’re sisters. It’s so fun, and she’s such a good actor that she makes everything so natural that you can really disappear into those stories.”
JUST LIKE OLD TIMES
It also seems like the deep-history, which often had the sister fighting for the love of Austin Reed, but that might not figure into the equation this time, or will it?
Alison indicated what she thought of the scripts she was given. “I felt like when I read it, it was a page-turner. I was very excited. There’s a lot of history here, and a lot of things that haven’t been said. So, it’s really not like, ‘Oh, rehashing stuff.’ And now having played some of the scenes, I’m psyched.” Sweeney added, as for the men, working again with her on-screen son, Chandler Massey and Will’s on-screen father Bryan Dattilo, was also extra special.
The last time DAYS viewers saw Sami on the canvas was back in November of 2025, when she revealed she has gotten engaged to never-before-seen Dante Vitali. As for Clark, she last visited Salem for the episodes surrounding John Black’s memorial in June of 2025.
Chandler Massey’s Will Horton last made a visit to Salem in November of 2025 when he attended the gala for the Tom Horton Free Clinic as part of the soap opera’s 60th anniversary celebration. Bryan Dattilo was last seen in December of 2025. So, by the time we see all four again it will be close to two years since they were on new episodes of the series. Time to look forward to June of 2027.
So, excited by the news of Alison, Christie, Chandler and Lucas making a return to Days of Our Lives? What do you think the story will be involving, Sami, Carrie, Lucas and Will? Let us know via the comment section.
Days Of Our Lives
‘Days of Our Lives’ Alum Al Calderon Talks On His Daytime Emmy-Nominated Scenes as Javi Hernandez (Exclusive)
Last Tuesday, Al Calderon scored the first Emmy nomination of his career for his role as Javi Hernandez on Days of Our Lives.
Calderon name was announced as one of the performers competing for gold in the Emerging Talent in a Daytime Drama Series category at the upcoming 53rd annual Daytime Emmy Awards on October 30.
This week, Calderon chatted live on You Tube’s Michael Fairman Channel for a one-on-one conversation where he discussed: his nominated scenes and time on the Peacock streaming soap opera, his decision to leave DAYS, his role of Nico Silva on Brilliant Minds and its sad cancellation, plus his passing the torch of Javi to Jacob Martinez, who took over the role on-screen on the June 30, 2026 episode of Days of Our Lives.
Photo: JPI
JAVI REVEALS TO LEO THAT HE HAD A DAUGHTER WHO DIED
Al revealed the scenes that comprise his now Emmy-nominated reel have at its epicenter the heartbreaking moments from the September 12, 2025 episode. In it, Javi shares for the first time to Leo (Greg Rikaart) that he had a daughter named Solana, with a woman he was seeing named Sylvia. One fateful day, Sylvia left their child in a car when she went to work and the little girl died. Javi had blamed himself for not being the parent to take his daughter to school that day since he was hungover the night before, therefore it opened up the opportunity for something to happen to the his child, and it did.
The multi-talented actor/singer explained his reel: “It was the scene where he is talking about his daughter to Leo. I also included the scene where Javi goes to talk to Melinda (Tina Huang) and to see if it would be a viable option to adopt, because I wanted to introduce the subtlety and nuance of why Javi kind of has this whole connection to Tesoro, in a way.”
It is true that Al can bring the tears and make us cry right along with him during his run as Javi. To that, Calderon added, “I’ve read the comments that I’m a little bit of a crybaby, so I didn’t want the entire reel to be of me crying, but I wanted it to show a little bit of an emotional range of the restraint that Javi was feeling so I included that scene
In addition Calderon shared, “I also included a really beautiful scene with Cherie Jimenez (Gabi Hernandez, DAYS) where I’m looking at photos of Tesoro, and of course, Javi is crying. I just wanted to show the relationship between Javi and his family as well, and as I mentioned the reveal of the child that he lost.”
Photo: JPI
ALUMS AL CALDERON AND ALICE HALSEY REPRESENT DAYS OF OUR LIVES IN EMERGING TALENT CATEGORY
In a twist of fate, Calderon is also nominated in the Emerging Talent category with Alice Halsey who played Rachel Black. Halsey is currently starring in the reboot of Little House on the Prairie in the lead role of Laura Ingalls on Netflix.
As to his hope on Emmy night, Al expressed, “Of course, I want to win, but Alice Halsey is going to give me a run for the money. And if’s not me (who wins the award), it better be her!”
You can check out the full interview with Al below.
Now let us know, do you remember Al’s emotional scenes when he explained to Leo he had a daughter who died, which made it all the more heartbreaking to not end up with permanent custody of Tesoro? What do you think of Al’s chances to win the gold based on his Emmy scene selection? Do you miss him as Javi? Weigh-in via the comment section.
Days Of Our Lives
Emily O’Brien Talks On Her Y&R Past as Jana Hawkes and Working with Peter Porte on ‘Days of Our Lives’
On the latest edition of Soapy Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart which dropped on Tuesday, July 21, Emily O’Brien is the featured guest. As soap fans know, Emily has worked with Rikaart both in her first soap role on The Young and the Restless as Jana Hawkes and now on Days of Our Lives in her current role of Gwen Rizczech.
While Emily continues on DAYS, she has very impressive list of credits in the other part of her career as a voice-over actress and one in motion-capture in some of the most popular video games in the world.
O’Brien was first seen on The Young and the Restless back in 2006. She recalled her landing the role which eventually paired her for her five year run with Greg Rikaart.
Photo: JPI
BEING CAST ON THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS
“The role was just a few days and she wasn’t even supposed to be English,” Emily recalled. “The role was originally called Jade. Karen Rae, the casting director of The Young and the Restless at the time said to me “Oh, you’re from England. Try it with the dialect.” I put it on and she said, ‘I’m going to bring you back at like 3 for s callback.’ So then they changed the role to Jana and they said she’s going to be a Brit. I was only supposed to be on for like five episodes and it turned into 5 years.”
In explaining why she loved crazy Jana, Emily shared, “Jana was sort of like the misanthrope. She was just was the odd one out and I loved it. I felt so comfortable playing that because she was just eclectic and weird and she loved playing with Ouija boards and she rode a motorbike. There was just so much color to bring to her. It was just such a great match to play with Greg (Kevin), and Christian LeBlanc (Michael) and Tracey Bregman (Lauren).
Photo: JPI
GWEN, DIMITRI AND LEO ON DAYS OF OUR LIVES
On Days of Our Lives, the Leo, Gwen, Dimitri dynamic is quite unique and been through many schemes and entanglements. Often Emily finds herself in repartee with her ex-lover, Dimitri, who turned out to be gay and then had a thing for her bestie, Leo (Greg Rikaart)!
During the conversation, Greg and Emily sang, Peter Porte’s praised with O’Brien expressing, “Peter is just ready to play. He comes on set prepared. I’ve never seen him with his script. From blocking and rehearsals, he doesn’t have it. He’s prepared. He’s a physical actor and he always trying to come up with something. I think he let me slap him. He let me kiss him. He let me throw a cheeseburger in his lap. He’s ready for anything for anything.”
You can catch the full episode of ‘Soapy; featuring Emily O’Brien below where the actress also talks about replacing Jen Lilley as Theresa Donovan after being let go as Gwen; and being paired again with Greg Rikaart on the Peacock streaming soap opera this time as best friends and more.
So, were you a big Jana Hawkes and Kevin Fisher fan on Y&R? Did you like them as a couple? Do you like the dynamic between Emily and Peter Porte and Greg Rikaart on DAYS? Weigh-in via the comment section below.
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