Heartbreaking Update! The Tragedy-Filled Life Of General Hospital’s Michael Corinthos

Michael’s early childhood was tumultuous, to say the least; he was the result of Carly Roberts’s alcohol-fueled one-night stand with AJ Quartermaine, but at first, Carly passed off Tony Jones, then Jason Morgan (Steve Burton), as the dad. When he was born, he required emergency heart surgery, and as an infant, he was kidnapped by a deranged Tony; Carly then did some time in a psychiatric facility after shooting Tony. Robin Scorpio (then Jason’s girlfriend) ultimately spilled the beans about Michael’s true paternity to AJ, and Carly entered into a loveless marriage with AJ to try to retain custody of her son. When Carly and mob boss Sonny Corinthos hooked up, Sonny forced AJ to relinquish his legal rights to Michael, and adopted the boy.

In 2005, Michael (Dylan Cash) was kidnapped (alongside his half sister Kristina and half brother Morgan) by Faith Roscoe, one of Sonny’s many enemies. Her accomplice? AJ (Billy Warlock). AJ staged Michael’s death, and while Carly and Sonny mourned their apparent loss, AJ was busy convincing poor Michael that his mom and adoptive dad didn’t want him anymore. Eventually, Jason came to his rescue, and AJ wound up dead (or so it seemed). For a time, a tortured Michael believed that he had smothered his bio dad to death with a pillow; while in therapy, he came to realize that he had only witnessed this, not been its perpetrator.

Michael’s life continued to be marred by violence, and in 2007, his longtime nanny, Leticia, and his paternal aunt, Emily, were both murdered by the Text-Message Killer, who turned out to be Diego Alcazar. Determined to keep his family safe, Michael got his hands on a gun — and he wound up accidentally shooting Sonny’s paramour, Kate Howard (Megan Ward), in 2008! A panic-stricken Michael fled, and when he returned to town, his warehouse reunion with Carly went south, courtesy of an explosion that caused Carly to miscarry the child she was expecting with Jax.

Shortly thereafter, Sonny and Michael were at Sonny’s legit business (the coffee warehouse) when a sniper shot at Sonny, but hit Michael in the head instead. His prognosis was grim, and Carly (Laura Wright) made the difficult decision to send Michael away to a long-term care facility. He would remain comatose for a year.

Michael (Drew Garrett) had a rocky reintroduction to his life, and eventually recalled that while in his coma, Claudia — who Sonny (Maurice Benard) was now married to — had confessed to orchestrating his shooting. Sonny confronted her, and Claudia bolted and kidnapped a very pregnant Carly. Carly gave birth to Josslyn, and when Michael found Claudia poised to flee with the newborn late in 2009, Michael grabbed a nearby axe and attacked her with it. He hit Claudia in the head, and she died on the spot.

Though valiant efforts were made to conceal Michael’s (Chad Duell) involvement in Claudia’s demise, Michael wound up making a full confession. In 2010, he was sentenced to multiple years in Pentonville. Jason made a deal with local law enforcement to also do time in order to protect Michael behind bars. Michael was granted an early release, but was alienated from his peers, still harbored a desire to follow in Sonny’s mobby footsteps, and began to suffer from nightmares and recoil from physical touch.

Michael began to get close to Abby Haver, and after rescuing her from a near-rape by her ex, Brandon, Michael found the courage to acknowledge that when he was in prison, he had been raped by a fellow inmate named Carter. Michael fell deeply in love with Abby, but their romance came to an abrupt end in 2012 when, on a trip to Chicago, the young woman was killed in a construction accident.

As Michael embarked on his next relationship, with Starr Manning, Jason was presumed dead — but not long thereafter, AJ (Sean Kanan) resurfaced, alive and well! Turns out, Monica (Leslie Charleson) had helped her troubled son fake his death. Michael and Morgan then fell for the same woman, Kiki Jerome, who chose Michael after the pair got confirmation that they were not, in fact, first cousins (Kiki had thought she was the daughter of Franco, who at the time was believed to be Jason’s twin). A war broke out between Michael’s two fathers in 2013 when Connie (previously known as Kate) was murdered, and evidence pointed to AJ being the culprit. (The true killer was Ava Jerome.) In 2014, Sonny shot AJ, who died.

It was not until Carly and Franco’s (Roger Howarth) ill-fated wedding that Michael learned that Sonny had killed AJ — and not only that, but Carly had helped him cover it up, and Kiki and Morgan also knew and had kept mum! In response, Michael cut ties with many of those closest to him and eventually changed his last name from Corinthos to Quartermaine and moved into the Q mansion. His rage toward Sonny even inspired him to sue for custody of Avery, Sonny’s young daughter by Ava.

In time, Michael patched things up with his parents and with Morgan, and he also embarked on a new relationship with nurse Sabrina Santiago (Teresa Castillo). On the very day in 2016 that Michael planned to propose to her, she was murdered by Paul Hornsby. Michael slipped the engagement ring he had intended to give her on her dead body as he said an emotional farewell to her. He had barely begun grieving when another death hit very close to home: Morgan was killed via a car bomb intended for Sonny.

This double dose of tragic loss made Michael vulnerable to Nelle Benson, a schemer hell-bent on destroying Carly’s life. In 2017, they became lovers. He broke things off after catching her in one too many lies, but Nelle soon revealed to him that she was pregnant with their child. The following year, Michael managed to get proof that Nelle had murdered her wealthy former fiancé and had similar plans for him.

When Nelle gave birth in the summer of 2018, she handed off her and Michael’s newborn son, Jonah, to Brad Cooper. The young boy Brad and Lucas had planned to adopt, Wiley, had died suddenly, and Nelle convinced a devastated Michael that it was their child who had passed away. Meanwhile, he became godfather to Wiley (aka Jonah). It was not until 2020 that Michael learned that Wiley was his biological son, and Lucas relinquished the child back to him. To bolster his chances of securing permanent custody in a battle with Nelle, he married Willow, and they fell in love. They ultimately annulled the union and Michael tried to make a go of things with ex Sasha, but Willow and Michael found their way back to each other and remarried. Willow survived a battle with leukemia and they became parents to a daughter, Amelia, in 2023.

In 2024, though, Michael and Willow’s happy marriage began to unravel when Willow couldn’t shake her attraction to Michael’s uncle, Drew. Learning that the pair had shared a kiss led Michael to drunkenly bed Sasha, resulting in her pregnancy, and Michael got quite the eyeful when a nanny cam captured Drew and Willow in the throes of passion in the Quartermaine nursery. At the start of 2025, he filed for divorce, gunning for full custody. Though it appears as though a nasty custody battle may now be the least of Michael’s worries….