It would seem that Sam McCall’s fate is sealed. Kelly Monaco has even finished working at General Hospital. Rumors have started swirling that Cyrus Renault kills her character by injecting digitalis into her IV after she undergoes surgery to donate part of her liver to boyfriend Dante Falconeri’s comatose former wife, Lulu Spencer.
But #IStandWithKelly fans aren’t giving up without one hell of a fight. They’ve parked the “phoenix on wheels” truck outside the soap’s studio once again and are playing on a loop their own promo video in which it is revealed that Sam isn’t nearly as dead as everyone thinks. (They even cleverly wove in clips of new Lulu Alexa Havins from other shows to make her a part of the mix.)
Although at this point, it seems unlikely that General Hospital will reverse its decision — we’d bet on Monaco being reunited on a different show with an ex-leading man of hers — the actress was deeply moved by the elaborate gesture. “Thank you,” she tweeted. “Y’all are the best, most loyal people ever!!!
“It doesn’t go unnoticed… at least by me,” she added. “Bravo!”
In late August, the news broke that the fan fave had been let go by ABC’s soap after 20+ years. The reason? Unclear. Fans speculated that perhaps she hadn’t been willing to take the cut in pay or guaranteed number of episodes that was being implemented by parent company Disney across the board. But Soap Opera Network reported that she said, “I took the cut.”
Two months later, Monaco linked her exit to that of the late Billy Miller as Drew Cain in 2019. When he “was fired,” she Instagrammed, “Sam’s storyline stopped. Stripping Sam of every characteristic she had. Something I worked for decades to build… Slowly dismantling her, into a character that I did not recognize, let alone the audience. Call it what you will… retaliation at it[s] finest.”
