Is Michelle Stafford leaving Young and the Restless since Phyllis Summers painted herself into a corner? Will the actress exit the soap soon?
This is a transcript of our Y&R video all about Michelle Stafford’s future with the CBS soap! Check out all our soap spoilers podcasts here and be sure to follow us on YouTube as well. The video is below as well.
Is Michelle Stafford Leaving Young and Restless?
Hey CBS Soap Opera fans. This is Soap Dirt on YouTube and we wanna talk about something on Y&R right now that everybody keeps asking about and we just wanna address it because there are a lot of places misreporting something that has sprung from a rumor.
It’s about Michelle Stafford and her tenure at the CBS Soap. And we kind of wanna just dispel this because. It’s being falsely reported all over the place that she might be leaving.
And let’s dig into what’s happening on screen and backstage and talk about all the reasons that we truly doubt this. And this is just a product of, I don’t know, fan fiction run wild.
So, let’s dig into that. And the question people keep asking — is Michelle Stafford leaving Young and the Restless. Is Phyllis leaving Y&R? First, the network doesn’t confirm things like this.
CBS doesn’t confirm. It has to be something crazy to get CBS to ever speak up, but there are just no signs that Michelle Stafford is leaving. If you take a glance at the storyline, sure, it looks bad for her.
Phyllis Summers Paints Herself into a Corner on Y&R
She’s painted herself into a corner and it seems like the easiest thing for Phyllis is to run and them to write Michelle Stafford out. But that’s not how soaps work. This scheme that she’s done and all these roadblocks she’s put up to her future is all part of the conflict.
That makes a story good on the soap opera. You’re probably really frustrated with Phyllis right now. Even if you don’t like Diane Jenkins, you’re probably frustrated about what Red’s done to dismantle her own life.
And if you do like Diane, you’re probably really mad about it. But here’s a little rundown of the obstacles she’s facing right now. These certainly make it look like her leaving Y&R — and Phyllis leaving Genoa City — makes sense.
Her kids are gonna be furious at her. They’re devastated right now on Young and the Restless. They’re mourning her loss. And of course, once she finally went in person and saw that heartbreak, that’s what has her rethink her fate and where she wants to go from here.
Because she can’t let her kids hate her like this. And then there’s the fact that she’s probably facing some jail time. You know, maybe not a huge sentence, but there has to be legal repercussions for what she did.
Phyllis Faces Backlash for Faked Death on Young and the Restless
Remember, Phyllis Summers set someone up, she tampered with evidence. There’s obstruction of justice, there’s arson with the ambulance. And bribery to public officials because they bought bodies from the morgue.
There’s so many things they could throw the book at Phyllis about, and that’s another reason for her just to run. There’s also the fact that Phyllis is a murderer. She killed Jeremy Stark. She stabs him to death.
Now mind you, it’s easy to say she’s a murderer. But he came at her with the scissors ready to attack her. And he definitely was gonna kill her because if she went back to Genoa City and came clean about everything on Young and the Restless…
As a felon on parole, Jeremy Stark was definitely gonna go to prison and he wasn’t gonna have it. So, he went at her and she got the better of him. So technically a murderer. Really it’s self-defense.
But the problem is, is that she wrapped up his body in the hotel shower curtain and is dragging it out, meaning she’s gonna dump it. When you don’t call the police and report self-defense and dump the corpse, it definitely looks like a murder charge.
So that’s like another thing that she could possibly face prison for. It’s yet another reason for Phyllis to go on the run, for Michelle Stafford to leave the CBS soap.
Michelle Stafford’s Character Faces Town Pariah Fate on CBS Soap Opera
So, there’s also the fact that when all this comes to light, she’s gonna be a town pariah. Not only are her kids gonna be furious, all her friends are gonna be furious.
Diane and Jack Abbott are going to be livid and not forgiving, and she’s gonna be back to being a pariah. So let’s dig in and let’s just dispel all there Young and the Restless rumors.
First of all, Phyllis could get out of all of this by flipping the script, blaming everything on Jeremy saying that he was the one setting up Diane and he kidnapped her to get her outta the way.
And then he was gonna kill her later. Something like that. Something to explain it so she could get outta that. And if she could make it look like she was the victim of Jeremy’s con and it was his scheme, then they would have to forgive her.
So, that would just be a matter of her telling some lies. And Phyllis is a top-notch lie-teller. She could totally get her kids to believe that she was a. Also, you know that she and Diane were both the victims.
She could sell that to her kids and then that would also get her out of prison for the obstruction of justice stuff because oh, that’s all Jeremy’s fault, and Jeremy’s gone.
Phyllis Can Blame it on Stark – So Why Would Michelle Stafford Leave Y&R?
Stark can’t defend himself on Young and the Restless. So, Phyllis Summers can blame everything on him. Now the problem is there’s that body that’s inevitably found. But until then, she doesn’t have to deal with that.
And maybe if she buried him really well on lime to the body and buried him super deep, maybe she’ll get away with it. Nobody will miss him. If she came up with that lie and put it off on Jeremy, she could probably sell that.
Jack and Diane are gonna be a hard sell, though. Because they know how hateful she was being to Diane leading to this fake death thing. So, Phyllis could tell all these lies and regain her status.
Or she could go another route and she could confess and say she was conspiring with Jeremy. He stole half her money and he ran that way. She doesn’t have to address the murder part and she can just say temporary insanity.
I just went nuts. Lost my head. I wanted revenge. I was bad. And you know, her best friend is a top-notch lawyer on Young and the Restless. Michael Baldwin might even be able to get her, you know, six months at the local mental hospital instead of jail time.
And if she gave a very sincere apology to Diane and convinced Diane that this is out of her system. She did wrong. She knows it. Diane probably wouldn’t press charges for her part of it. You know, she may just wanna move on and marry Jack.
So, Phyllis Summers could lie her way out of it, or she could confess her way out of it. But either way, it just doesn’t seem likely that Phyllis is leaving.
No Signs of Michelle Stafford Leaving Young and Restless
There is absolutely no sign that Michelle Stafford is leaving the CBS Soap Opera. Let me say it loud for everybody at the back. Nothing. And if you’ve read that Michelle Stafford is leaving and yada, yada, yada… No, no, no. Stafford came back over to Y&R.
She was hired to resume the role in May 2019. And generally, the longest soap contract that you’re gonna see is like three years. So had she signed a three-year deal at the time, that would’ve taken her through 2022. We are in 2023. Okay.
So, even if she signed a three-year contract at Young and the Restless, she’s clearly had a renewal since then. And she might have gotten a one-year renewal, a two -ear renewal or another three-year deal because she’s very centric to what’s going on.
There is absolutely no reason to think that her contract has expired and that Michelle Stafford is leaving. The network hasn’t said anything. She hasn’t even hinted at it, and she has been posting videos of herself at work.
This is all just a very soapy plot for Phyllis. She’s not leaving. What she’s getting instead is a really good bunch of scenes to pick from for her Emmy reel to get her nominated for lead actress or supporting actress, whichever way they wanna go.
I would imagine lead actress for next year’s Emmys, she’s doing top-notch work. Whether you are aggravated with Phyllis, whether you’re Team Phyllis versus Team Diane, it doesn’t matter. You have to acknowledge as an actor, she’s doing a top notch job.
Phyllis Will Wriggle Out of her Mess on Y&R
There is still plenty of wiggle room for Phyllis to get out of this jam. And Red is the queen of wriggling herself into and out of tight situations.
So, if you are worried that Michelle Stafford is leaving Young and the Restless, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. And so, unless you hear from an actress, you shouldn’t believe just this chatter.
And I’ve looked around to see anything factual — any proof that Michelle Stafford is actually leaving. Some outlets even said it’s confirmed. It’s not confirmed. Nothing is confirmed.
This is just, you know, one of these things where people just pick up a story and run with it and they don’t vet it and they don’t check it, and of course, it’s natural to question as a blogger, as a news outlet like Soap Dirt is, and as a fan like you are, is this person leaving?
Is this character leaving? Is this actress that I enjoy watching, leaving? That’s a natural thing to question when you reach a dramatic storyline like this. But don’t worry about it.
Phyllis is gonna come back to Genoa City and one way or another, she’s gonna face the consequences for what she’s done. Even if she comes back with lies, she’s gonna be caught out and she is gonna have to pay the piper in one form or another eventually.
And Michelle Stafford will be there and will be cheering as we watch it go down. Thanks for listening.
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