An estranged celebrity daughter, substance abuse after a miscarriage, and back-to-back
family member deaths. Sadly, these weren't soap opera storylines, but real life for these stars.
Alison Sweeney joined Days of Our Lives in 1993 at the age of 16 as Sami Brady. Offscreen, Sweeney
has been open about the troublesome effects that the public's speculation about her weight
has had on her mental health. In her 2004 memoir All the Days of My Life (So Far), she revealed
that she lost roles due to her weight and that her self-esteem began to suffer. As she put it,
"For many years, even though I was never obese, I tried fitting into a culture that reveres lean,
angular bodies in women [...] I absolutely hated myself when I
glared at the scale and it glared back at me with unwelcome news."
"Publicly, you have gone through your own weight struggles."
Sweeney's numerous dieting attempts included eating just fruit, only eating before 5:00 PM,
and ordering only nutritionist-prepared meals to be delivered at home.
But as she eventually described all that:
"It really was a sad and pathetic way to live, diet after diet, year after year."
Though she was aware of the damaging effects of diet culture, Sweeney hosted the reality series
The Biggest Loser from 2007 to 2015. Upon leaving that gig, she told People Magazine,
"Times change and situations change [...] It wasn't an easy decision.
It was just the right time for me to do something different."
John Aniston has played iconic Salem patriarch Victor Kiriakis since 1985.
Though the character is usually a conniving master manipulator, Victor has at times tried
to reform himself and act for good instead of evil. Of course, though, it rarely sticks.
Victor frequently feuds with his children and grandchildren,
and it appears that his off-screen life reflects his art, as he was estranged from
his famous daughter Jennifer for many years. As she revealed to Interview Magazine in 2020,
"[I grew] up in a household that was destabilized and felt unsafe,
watching adults being unkind to each other, and witnessing
certain things about human behavior that made me think: 'I don't want to do that.'"
John left the family when Jennifer was young, and the two would only speak rarely,
even as Jennifer skyrocketed to fame on the mega-popular sitcom Friends. Eventually,
though, they reportedly found their way back together during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a source told the Daily Mail in April 2020,
"Jennifer didn't speak to him for ages. But since the coronavirus crisis she has been
on the phone almost every day. And not just brief conversations. It's like she
has realized life is very short and she wants her relationship with John to be the best it can be."
Arianne Zucker joined Days of Our Lives in 1998 as the scheming Nicole,
who's done everything from marrying for money to swapping babies. But in 2016,
she found herself unexpectedly embroiled in a real-life political scandal. That was because
she appeared on the infamous Access Hollywood tape in which then-presidential candidate Donald
Trump made a vulgar brag about how he treats women while onboard a bus with Billy Bush.
Zucker had been tasked with meeting her fellow NBC stars on the backlot
and was unaware of the crass conversation that had been going on moments before she
joined. When the tape was leaked ahead of the 2016 presidential election,
Zucker found herself having to answer for it on various outlets. As she wrote in an op-ed for CNN,
"I refuse to let a situation such as this one take away my emotional power. You are who you
allow yourself to be and I did not and will not let this event or any of its aftermath
affect who I am as a woman, mother, daughter, friend and partner to a great man."
"I'm ready to use it to- for women to step forward, and-and to do good things."
Another iconic Days of Our Lives villainess is the cunning Kristen DiMera. The adopted daughter
of the evil Stefano, she's been involved in murders, suicides, stolen children,
and even a stint as a nun. She's been played by several different actresses,
but most frequently by Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Eileen Davidson.
When Davidson first joined Real Housewives, she was still playing Kristen on and off,
and she was also enduring the losses of multiple family members. First, her sister Connie passed
away in 2014. Then her niece Brooke died later that year. Then a few months later, in June 2015,
she lost her father-in-law, actor Dick Van Patten. As she memorialized him on Twitter,
"What a wonderful loving hilarious humble talented man. I will love him forever."
And finally, at the beginning of the following year,
she lost her older brother John. On her Housewives blog on Bravo's website, she
shared memories of John, who was an air traffic controller and a martial artist, as she wrote,
"In honor of my brother, I ask whoever reads this
to take a minute to remind someone important to you that you love them."
Between 2011 and 2020, Freddie Smith played Sonny Kiriakis, the first
openly gay contract character on Days of Our Lives. Sonny married Will Horton in 2014,
making them the first gay male married couple in American daytime soap history.
That same year, things were a lot rockier offscreen, though,
as Smith crashed his car in Ohio. He was treated and released from the hospital that same night,
but his girlfriend Alyssa was hospitalized in critical condition.
Shortly after the accident, Smith wrote on Facebook,
"I can't thank you all enough for your [ongoing] support, thoughts,
and prayers!!!! I really do have the best friends and family in the world!!!!"
Thankfully, Alyssa managed to recover, and she and Smith eventually married.
But because he was driving drunk at the time of the accident, he was sentenced
to two years' probation. He reportedly pled guilty to a fourth degree felony of vehicular
assault. He eventually left Days in 2020, and the role was recast.
Before Lisa Robin Kelly found fame as Laurie Forman on That 70s Show,
she had a 26-episode stint as Jill Stevens on Days of Our Lives.
Kelly later disappeared from That 70s Show in 2003, though the show continued on for
years without her. She explained to ABC News in 2012 that she was struggling in
her private life because she had experienced a miscarriage, which led to her abusing alcohol.
"I had lost a baby. As a result of that I lost everything."
That year, Kelly was arrested, reportedly for her involvement in a domestic violence
incident with an ex-boyfriend. After TMZ shared her mugshot,
the photo went viral for its contrast with her blonde bombshell image on That 70s Show.
Just a year later, Kelly died in an addiction treatment facility at the age of 43,
mere days after she entered the facility. She passed away in her sleep,
and police ultimately ruled out any foul play. Her agent released a statement to the Los Angeles
Times upon her passing, indicating that Kelly had been recovering before her death. As he put it,
"She was hopeful and confident, looking forward to putting this part of her life behind her.
Last night she lost the battle."
The history of Days of Our Lives is littered with iconic villains,
and few were more villainous than the conniving Lee DuMonde, played by Brenda Benet from 1979
to 1982. Lee was a gold digger who came between iconic supercouple Doug and Julie. She was after
the fortune left to Doug by his dead brother, and in the course of her evil plot to steal the money
from him, she tried to have Julie killed, yet somehow she managed to paralyze herself instead.
Offscreen, Benet's real life was far more tragic than her character's misdeeds.
She once told the Los Angeles Times that she felt secluded from the cast, as she explained,
"I discovered that personality conflicts can be tremendous on a soap,
so I stayed out of the off-screen social circle."
She then suffered an unspeakable tragedy in 1981 when her son died of acute epiglottitis,
a rare disease that prevents young children from swallowing.
A year after that tragic loss, Benet died herself by suicide,
which left the Days of Our Lives cast in what the Los Angeles Times called "a state of shock."
The paper quoted an unnamed co-star who said that Benet had "an aura of constant sadness."
Years later, fellow Days star Susan Seaforth Hayes told We Love Soaps in 2010,
"The costumer knew she had lost 20 pounds just prior in the past
month. He knew she was drinking and she was going downhill physically."
Susan's husband and co-star Bill Hayes added,
"I wish we had known the state she was in. But again she was very private.
She never said to anyone, 'The death of my son means the end of my life.'
And we were working together every day. She never said that to me."
Macdonald Carey was one of the original cast members on Days of Our Lives
as Doctor Tom Horton, and he also provided the iconic voiceover intro that informs viewers:
"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."
Carey, who also wrote poetry, once described his approach to acting by noting,
"The profession teaches you a lot of bad things,
but it also teaches you something of great value: 'Make it fresh every day.'"
Carey's daughter Lisa had schizophrenia, and her struggle contributed in part to
his own experience with alcoholism. The ripple effects vibrated even further,
as his alcoholism was also partly to blame for his divorce, as he wrote in his memoir The Days
of My Life. Shortly before Carey's death in 1994, he told the Orlando Sentinel that
his daughter was doing much better and that he'd been sober for 11 years. As he put it,
"She is reaching out. She wants to join society."
He also described a show he was working on that would help teach people about schizophrenia.
That project remained unfinished at the time of Carey's death,
but there's now a mental health treatment center in California
that bears the soap star's name, and his voice still opens every episode of Days of Our Lives.