DON DIAMONT RETURNS TO Y&R!

Don Diamont admits he was surprised when he heard that Y&R wanted B&B’s Bill Spencer to cross over to Genoa City.

The popular star, who previously toiled at the No. 1 soap from 1985-2009 as Brad Carlton, has strong memories of his unceremonious exit over a decade ago. “If I’m to be honest, I guess it was a bit of a mixed reaction,” Diamont begins. “For so many years, that show meant so much to my life, and then the way things went down there at the end, it was a shock. It was disheartening. It was hurtful. It was all of that, and it ended up being wonderful [laughs], really kind of the best thing that could have happened. Little did I know that Dollar Bill, as it turned out, was waiting around the corner. It was really a defining role for me; I just can’t imagine playing a more fulfilling, challenging, fun role than Dollar Bill, so it was a blessing in disguise. So after that initial, ‘Wow, this will be weird,’ then it was, ‘Okay, this is cool.’ You can go home again, right?”

Because Diamont left Y&R in his rear-view mirror when he joined B&B, a return to the canvas as Bill was never a thought in his head. “I had not even considered that I would be part of a crossover, just because my character was so well-defined at Y&R,” he explains. “It wasn’t like I was on for three months. I had never even considered that possibility, so it just kind of took me by surprise when they asked. And the ending [on Y&R, where Brad died] was so out of the left field and undeserved and nothing to do with me. That had the potential to really mess with your life, so when I put my intellect over my emotion, then it just became really cool. And to work with Peter [Bergman, Jack] and Tracey [E. Bregman, Lauren]? They’re dear friends and Peter and I are very, very close and that’s a blast.”