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Things You Didn’t Know About Y&R Star Melissa Claire Egan

Dorathy Gass

July 6, 2017

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One of the greatest actresses in the land of daytime drama today has to be Melissa Claire Egan. In the character of Chelsea Newman on The Young and the Restless (Y&R), she is funny, smart, and beautiful — all traits Egan herself seems to possess. When you peel the onion back on this soap queen, there is so much more to Melissa than meets the eye. Below are some things you didn’t know about Y&R’s Melissa Claire Egan.

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10. “Middle Child” Syndrome

Wonder if Melissa suffers from this? As a middle child between brothers Ryan and Scott, she also happens to be the lone daughter of parents Mary and Dennis. Sounds like growing up in a household with three kids had to have been interesting for Melissa and a far cry from how her Y&R character Chelsea was raised.

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9. Melissa’s Early Work With AMC

Many fans are aware that before she hit Genoa City, Melissa resided in Pine Valley, working on All My Children (AMC) as Annie Lavery. What some may not be aware of is that one of Egan’s first television appearances was on that very same soap, when she worked for the show as an extra at the age of twelve. Talk about destiny!

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8. Commercials

Like many struggling actors, Melissa took on commercials to get her feet wet in the acting business. She moved to Los Angeles after graduating and did quite a few ads. In fact, she did a Taco Bell commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. However, she didn’t know when or where it would appear, so while watching the grand event, her commercial popped up and surprised her.

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7. Prime Time Jobs

Melissa has had a variety of prime time guest roles, both before and during her soap opera career. She’s worked on One Tree Hill, Dawson’s Creek, and Criminal Minds. Interestingly enough, she also acted as a spokesperson at one point in time for Proactiv, along with former soap colleague Chrishell Stause.

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6. Soap Sibling Turns Into More?

In the fall of 2011, Melissa entered the land of Y&R and turned the town upside down. While she started off as a con woman, she has now ended up a prominent member of Genoa City. Her character Chelsea initially had a thing with Billy Abbott, who was then played by Billy Miller. Interestingly enough, Miller was a former AMC colleague of Egan’s, where the two played siblings on that show!

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5. Hardest Part Of Her Job?

During a 2016 interview with Soap Central, Egan related the hardest thing she found about working on a soap was the amount of material a daytime drama actress has to memorize. She also stated that in spite of this, she does love being kept on her toes and enjoys that they only get one take.

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4. Love Scenes

Do love scenes make Egan nervous? Not at all! In that same interview, Melissa noted that being in the soap business as long as she has had made love scenes easier. In fact, she also stated that a love scene is a piece of cake compared to 45 pages of monologue that needs to be memorized. Well, that does make sense!

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3. Married Life

Melissa and her boyfriend Matt Katrosar got engaged in early 2013 and were married in a Santa Barbara ceremony in the summer of 2014. For a soap opera actress who has been married several times between two shows, how did Egan feel about planning her own wedding? In an interview with InsideWeddings.com, Melissa relayed how it was cool to finally be able to do a wedding her way! Glad to hear it wasn’t stressful!

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2. Films

Seems like Melissa has done it all. She’s on top of the soap opera world, dabbled in prime time, and has even done some films during her acting career. In 2005, she played Ali Court in a film titled Wrestling. She also had a role in the 2009 flick My Father’s Will, as well as Somewhere Slow in 2013.

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1. Favorite Part

With all the acting jobs and work that Melissa has done over the years, it may be hard to pick one role that she has loved the most. An interview conducted this past May, Egan stated that picking a favorite part would be like picking a favorite child, and she was torn between her AMC Annie character and her current Y&R Chelsea role. As she mentioned, both have been quite fun to play.

Dorathy Gass

Dorathy Gass is an avid fan of daytime drama and has been watching Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, and Young and the Restless for over two decades now. As a full-time freelance writer, she gets to combine her love of soap operas and writing through her Fame 10 articles. Also a mother of two busy girls and a mommy blogger, she's been published multiple times over in Huffington Post Parents and Scary Mommy.