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Y&R's Michelle Stafford reaction on her Daytime Emmy Nomination!
Photo Credit: JPI Studios
One of daytime’s most powerful actresses, and already a two-time Daytime Emmy Award winner, picked up another nomination this past Wednesday for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. We can only be talking about Y&R’s Michelle Stafford (Phyllis). On-Air On-Soaps caught up with Michelle on Emmy nomination day to get her thoughts on her competition, the meaning of the recognition by her peers, and what she submitted that got her into the final five. Here is what Michelle had to say!
Michelle on how she found out she was nominated, and what it means to be a nominee: “Our head writer, Maria Bell called me at 5:50am. And, I did know the nominations were coming out today. In the past, every year that I submit myself, I try not to know when the nominations are coming out, because I don’t want to be stuck to it. Every year I do that somebody the night before usually tells me, “Hey, tomorrow the nominations are coming out.” And then I go, “Oh, God! OK, great. Now I know.” So this year I was like, “I am going to find out when they are being announced ahead of time (Laughs), and this year, nobody the day before even talked about the nominations which I thought was totally hilarious! It’s so great to be recognized. I don’t know anyone who takes getting a nomination lightly. You should be out, if you are going to be so jaded and take it lightly. But if you are going to play, then you are going to play to win, and you don’t always win, but you are going in to play the game.”
Michelle on what episode she submitted that got her the Lead Actress nomination: “The show I submitted was Phyllis is trying to hold on to her marriage, and hold on to her life, and she knows she is going down. She finds out that her husband’s ex- wife is pregnant possibly with his child. And it just keeps getting worse and worse, and she knows she is losing. There is something about the reel that I liked, and that is that Phyllis just kept on coming back. She is trying to make it work, and then Nick says something to piss her off. There is desperation about it that I thought was interesting. I guess some others did, too (Laughs).”
Michelle on her fellow nominees in her category: Crystal Chappell, Maura West, Bobbie Eakes and Sarah Brown! “Well, I texted Crystal, I texted Maura, I tweeted Sarah Brown, and I face booked Bobbie. So, thank God for new communications. It’s a great group every year, and there is never a bad one in the bunch. However, it seems like every year I am nominated, I am nominated with Maura and Crystal! (Laughs)
Michelle on being nominated with the Y&R collective acting group of Peter Bergman, Doug Davidson, and Billy Miller – all of whom On-Air On-Soaps said to Michelle were “her buds” : “Well not Billy! Let’s not go that far.” (Laughs)
Michelle on how she celebrated the news: “Well, every year Christian LeBlanc (Michael) and I, whether one of us is nominated or both of us are nominated, we get together to celebrate ourselves. So, last year I went with him to celebrate him, and this year he went with me today to celebrate me.”
Michelle on the storyline this past year with Sharon/Nick/Phyllis that earned her a nomination: “The one thing I will say is: last year I worked really hard on this storyline. It was sort of written for me to be a shrew at times, for Phyllis to be the bad one. I had to bring a human quality to it because it was so shocking to her what was happening. You write these triangles and somebody has to be wrong. In the scripts I received, many times, if I played it screaming at Nick in his face, who is going to understand that? As a storyteller, I had to view it as that I am telling a story of this woman’s condition right now. The story I wanted to tell was how this woman was feeling. It was hard from October through May. I was crying and tormented over the dissolution of my marriage, and that is a long time to play that. And, as I was going through the episodes to choose for the Emmy competition, I saw that actually, Nick ended his marriage to Phyllis six times! There were six break-up scenes! Even Maria when they were looking through episodes said, “Oh, my God. I didn’t even realize…we shouldn’t do that anymore.” (Laughs) I worked hard to mold and create empathy for what this woman is feeling and that was fun.”
Make sure to read many Emmy nominee exclusive reactions on our special Daytime Emmy Nominations page !
The latest ratings are out for the week of October 26-30, 2026 and the big takeaways include: that CBS daytime’s Beyond the Gates was separated by only 23,000 viewers behind third place (of the soaps) General Hospital! For the last several weeks, Beyond the Gates has been closing the gap on this year’s winner for Outstanding Daytime Drama Series, and continuing to best GH in the key demos.
According to the latest Nielsen ratings breakdown from Soap Opera Network, the final week of October brought Beyond the Gates 1.790 million on average tuning-in and the show set a season high in total viewers. Meanwhile, General Hospital hit a new season low! The long-running ABC soap had 1.813 million for the week, and once again the series did not go over the 2 million mark.
Meanwhile, in the key Women 18-49 demo, Beyond the Gates was firmly ahead of GH with a rating share of 0.21, while General Hospital had 0.17 rating share.Then, in the key Women 25-54 demo, Beyond the Gates was once again ahead of the ABC soap with a ratings share for that demo at 0.30 while GH came in with 0.26.
Photo: CBS
MORE BY THE NUMBERS
In addition and comparatively, Beyond the Gates +22,000 viewers week-to-week, and had the largest gains in viewership year-to-year in daytime TV with +267,000 from this in 2025.. However, General Hospital seems to be going in reverse. The show was down -56,000 viewers week-over-week and down -22,000 year-over-year .
BEYOND THE GATES
Let’s take a look at some of the storylines that had people tuning-in to Beyond the Gates during the ratings week:
Hayley (Marquita Goings) attempted a massive shocker regarding her pregnancy and tried to use it to extract money from Bill Hamilton (Timon Kyle Durrett). Although, Bill saw right through her game, he demanded a paternity test, and made it clear he has no intention of raising the child—planning instead to pay her off to take the baby and leave. Meanwhile, Hayley confided her plan to her cousin Randy (Maurice P. Kerry).
Jacob Hawthorne (Jibre Hordges) and Naomi Hamilton (Arielle Prepetit) clashed over Jacob’s ongoing investigation into The Impaler, causing significant strain in their marriage. At the same time, Smitty (Mike Manning) considered taking matters into his own hands—including potentially heading to Mexico for evidence—while Martin Richardson (Brandon Claybon) worried about what comes next.
Photo: ABC
GENERAL HOSPITAL
Over at General Hospital for the ratings period, the story served up included:
Carly (Laura Wright) and Valentin (James Patrick Stuart) teamed up to investigate what really happened to Jack Brennan (Chris McKenna). Later, Danny (Asher Antonyzyn) leads them to Jack’s dead body.
Jude (Wil Traval) dropped a bombshell claim to Alexis (Nancy Lee Grahn); that he is Phoebe’s father, while Brook Lynn (Amanda Setton) and Chase (Josh Swickard) signed their divorce papers.
Then, Danny caught Rocco (Finn Carr) and Scout (Kayden Brenna Tokarski) sharing a kiss, plus the shocking return of Heather Webber (Alley Mills) capped the week.
Now the questions become; without having much promotional synergy in the ABC day-part to draw more eyeballs it is not helping but hurting General Hospital. It seems Beyond the Gates is also a benefactor of a one-two-three punch of CBS soaps (Y&R, B&B and BTG) and promotion.
However, that still doesn’t take away the fact that Beyond the Gates is close to besting GH in all ratings category as they go head-to-head in some markets across the country.
So, are you excited to see Beyond the Gates climb in the ratings? Are you concerned for General Hospital? Do you think they can stave off Beyond the Gates in total viewers or will the upstart soap overtake them in the next ratings report? Share your thoughts in the comment section.
Antonio Sabáto Jr., the former Jagger Cates of General Hospital and GH: Night Shift, and the former Dante Damiano of The Bold and the Beautiful has issued his first public statement since the incident involving his son, Jack’s arrest in Alaska for a fatal hit-and-run.
Jack is the son of Sabáto Jr. and Oscar-nominated actress Virginia Madsen, and according to court documents obtained by KTUU Jack, was allegedly driving a white Chevy Tahoe when he hit and killed Carl Simmonds, 42, near an intersection in Anchorage around 5:35 a.m. on Monday, November 9.
The reports indicated that Jack fled the scene — but later decided to called the cops to say he hit “something” that “suddenly appeared in the road” while he was “doing late-night DoorDashing.”
Photo: NBC
Now, Antonio has taken to his Instagram breaking his silence on the situation, sharing, “At this time, my family and I are navigating an extremely sensitive and deeply personal matter.”
He added, “As a father, my love for my children remains unconditional, and my priority is the well-being of my family. We ask that the public and members of the media honor our privacy during this difficult time and keep us all in your thoughts and prayers.”
The soap alum concluded, “I also wish to extend my heartfelt condolences to the family and loved ones of the gentleman who tragically lost his life. My thoughts and prayers are with them as well. We sincerely appreciate your compassion, understanding, and respect for the privacy of everyone affected.”
Jack Sabáto was arraigned in court on Tuesday, November 10 with bail set at $5,000, and a no-driving order and the potential of $5,000 penalty fees if he fails to attend future court appearances.
Antonio is the father to Jack, 34, daughter, Mina Sabato, 24 and son, Antonio Sabáto III, 15.
This is a developing story. You can check out Antonio’s official statement below.
So, let us know your thoughts on this tragic hit-and-run, which claimed the life of another man, and Antonio’s statement, via the comment section below.
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Days of our Lives long-running cast member James Reynolds revealed on the November 10 edition of Entertainment Tonight that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and his character of Abe Carver will now be going through an on-screen Parkinson’s battle as well.
Speaking with ET’s Nischelle Turner, the 80-year-old actor and Daytime Emmy winner shared how he attempted to hide the warning signs dating back to 15-20 years ago when he would have, “What they call the hallucinations. My wife (Lissa) would say, ‘You were hitting me last night in bed,’ and I would say, ‘What?!’ I was having these really horrible dreams.” Reynolds also added that he realized falling out of bed was an early symptom of Parkinson’s too.
Discussing the on-going tremors that have become more noticeable over time especially in hands, James shared that when he finally told the Days of our Lives cast they were nothing but “extraordinarily helpful and supportive.”
Photo: ET
SCREEN LIFE TO MIRROR REAL LIFE
Now with DAYS about to launch into Abe’s Parkinson’s storyline, Reynolds hopes that he can turn his experience into something positive by encouraging others facing the disease to keep fighting. During the sit-down, Reynolds co-star Jackée Harry (Paulina Price) recalls her reaction to learning of Reynolds’ real-life diagnosis and how she has continued to search for new treatments to inform James about.
Although Parkinson’s disease currently has no cure, there are medications and treatments can help those manage symptoms and improve quality of life. The condition progresses at a different pace from individual to individual.
As discussed in his conversation with ET, Reynolds cited Michael J. Fox and Alan Alda as two high-profile celebrities who have brought awareness to the disease.
Photo: JPI
In story on DAYS, Abe in recent weeks had been experiencing tremors which led to seek help and a diagnosis Dr. Kayla Johnson (Mary Beth Evans). Soon Abe and others will find out of his battle with Parkinson’s. Although on the promo for this week’s DAYS, Abe is seen telling Kayla, that he will do something, “when the time is right.”
James Reynolds is one of the most prolific performers, being the longest-running Black Actor in a role on a television series, not to mention his aforementioned Lead Actor Daytime Emmy win in 2018, and being inducted in 2025 into the Daytime Emmy Gold and Silver Society of honorees.
You can check out James’ in-depth conversation on his Parkinson’s diagnosis below.
Share your thoughts for James after learning of his health battle, and what do you think of Days of our Lives incorporating the disease into Abe Carver’s Salem storyline? Let us know in the comment section.
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B&B’s Sydney Bullock Weighs In on Future of Dylan and Will: ‘I Think She Can Hold on to Him for Awhile’ (Exclusive)
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Congratuations to all the Y& R nominees but, Michael did you for get that Christel Khalil was also a Y&R emmy nominee?
Hey Anny: Not at all. I Know Christel is up. The reason I did not bring her name up during the interview with Michelle was Christel does not have hardly any scenes with Michelle on the show. There stories do not mix. So therefore she is not one of the people she performs with often. It was meant as no slight to Christel. Hope this makes sense.
It’s cool. Now I understand.
Stafford turned crappy Shick-based material into gold.
Best of luck, Michelle!
Congratulations Michelle,
You really really are a remarkable actress and such a lovely person, and that’s why you are my favourite soap actress EVER!! No other actress has ever made me feel every single emotion onscreen like you have. Trust me on this one, I was in as much agony watching Phyllis being dragged through the mud for almost an entire year…many times I felt like I wanted to jump into the TV, get a crappy old car (because Phyllis doesn’t do that anymore LOL) and drive over Nick and Sharon 100 times until you couldn’t tell the asphalt from their selfish bodies.
I never ever pay attention to who gets nominated or even watch the Emmys but I wanted you to get nominated this year, you were outstanding and had so many great scenes. I am still not going to watch the Emmys but I will be praying for you to win this year so that your little Mini-Staffy can get her first Emmy too 🙂
Best Wishes.
I was surprised that Stacy Haiduk was not nominated. Playing two characters (Patty & Emily) at the same time is not an easy task. Stacy has done some really difficult scenes, portraying a mentally ill person, etc. Michelle is a good actress, but nothing comparable to Stacy’s performances this past year. In my opinion, Stacy should have been the nominee, which she well deserved.
Christel Khalil’s nomination is a real mystery. I see no exceptional talent with her or the character she portrays. In my opinion, she is quite boring.
I know I will be watching as my favourite actress is up for the Emmy. Congratulations to Michelle for her excellent work in a year when so much of the material was not written from her character’s point of view. Thank your for highlighting the vulnerbility and the grace of Phyllis on a daily basis.
He left Phyllis 6 times? Wow! That’s much. Time for him to fight for her