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Real Life Soap Opera Couples

Dorathy Gass

August 18, 2016

©Jill Johnson/jpistudios.com

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Love is always in the air, as couples fall in and out of love on a weekly (or sometimes daily) basis. Go behind the scenes of the most popular daytime soap operas, such as The Young and the Restless (Y&R) and Bold and the Beautiful, and you’ll see many examples of real-life couples who have found love on the set, proving once again that at times life can imitate art. Below are some real-life soap opera couples, with quite a few finding love on the set of Y&R.

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15. Lynn Herring and Wayne Northrop

Lynn Herring’s is well-known for the funny and quirky character she has long-played on GH, Lucy Coe. Meanwhile, her hubby Wayne Northrop is a soap opera star in his own right, playing two incredible DOOL roles over the years, Roman Brady and Alex North. These two daytime drama actors didn’t meet on a set, rather they were in the same acting class in 1980 and got hitched one year later. Northrop and Herring have two boys and own a cattle ranch in Madera County.

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14. Kassie and James DePaiva

Who else misses One Life to Life (OLTL)? Kassie (who played Blair Cramer) met James (who played Max Holden) on the OLTL set and the two decided to get married in 1996. They share a 20-year-old son together, and while the two no longer work on the same show together, they are still living it up in the land of daytime drama. James can be seen on GH, as the good doctor, David Bensch, while Kassie plays the manipulative Eve Donovan on Days.

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13. Maura West and Scott DeFreitas

While GH fans enjoy watching Maura West play the scandalous Ava Jerome, As the World Turns (ATWT) undoubtedly holds a special place in her heart, as it is where she met the current love of her life, Scott DeFreitas. The two fell in love while working on ATWT and were wed in 2000. Still, this isn’t West’s first marriage. Interestingly enough, she was previously hanging tough with New Kids on the Block’s Jonathan Knight and was married to the boy-band singer from 1995-1999.

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12. Schae Harrison and Mick Cain

Bold and Beautiful (B&B) stars Mick Cain (C.J. Garrison) and Schae Harrison (Darla Forrester) proved true love is possible in the fashion world when they met and fell for each other on the B&B set. The two were wed in 2001 and welcomed son Haven Jude in 2003. In fact, Cain took some time away from work when Haven arrived to spend time quality time with his son.

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11. Courtney Hope and Chad Duell

While they aren’t on the same show, Courtney Hope and Chad Duell have found love in daytime drama. Hope, who plays Sally Spectra on Y&R, and Duell, who plays Michael Corinthos on GH, began dating in 2016 and tied the knot in the fall of 2021. Unfortunately, less than eight weeks later, both soap stars began deleting images of the other on Instagram, and Duell revealed that they’d parted ways.

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10. Crystal Chappell and Michael Sabatino

Rewinding through the Days of Our Lives (DOOL) history vault and long-time fans may remember Carly and Lawrence. It was a toxic relationship, where Lawrence was controlling and Carly longed for something more. Thankfully their real-life relationship seems nothing of the sorts. In 1990, the two actors met on the DOOL set and were smitten. They got married in early 1997 and are still quite happy today. Chappell and Sabatino have two sons together.

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9. Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos

Love was certainly in the air on the All My Children set in 1995 when Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos met, fell in love, and eloped that same year. After twenty years of marriage and three kids later, these two superstars still seem to be head-over-heels in love. While Kelly is enjoying a successful talk show career with her mega-hit Live! with Kelly, Mark has enjoyed acting gigs of his own on primetime shows like Pitch, Alpha House, Law and Order, and Riverdale. He sometimes appears on Live! with Kelly alongside his wife as a co-host.

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8. Arianne Zucker and Shawn Christian

Adrianne and Shawn met on the DOOL set in 2014 and still seem to be going strong. Not only did these two find love, but their on-screen Days’ characters did as well! The coupling of Dr. Daniel Jonas and Nicole Walker rocked the little town of Salem, as the good doctor helped turn this bad girl into a pretty decent human being. Sadly, Christian’s character was axed in January of 2016, but the good news is these two are still together — and even got engaged in 2021!

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7. True O’Brien and Casey Moss

There’s nothing quite like young love, whether you are talking about real-life or the soap opera scene. True O’Brien and Casey Moss met and fell in love on the set of DOOL in 2014. O’Brien played Paige Larson and Moss played J.J. Deveraux, two teen Salemites who also happened to have fallen for each other, a very true case (pun intended) of life that imitates art. Sadly, O’Brien’s character was killed off in 2015 while Moss’ character continues to stay strong in Salem. Thankfully this hasn’t placed a wedge between them in the slightest. You can still see pics of the couple on their respective Instagram accounts and O’Brien has been known to attend the live gigs Moss plays with his band Eyes of One quite often.

A photo posted by Casey Moss (@1caseymoss) on Apr 28, 2016 at 3:31pm PDT

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6. Chrishell Stause and Justin Hartley

While Young and the Restless (Y&R) fans mourned the day that Justin Hartley left the show to pursue his primetime dreams, what’s even better is seeing him with his ‘better half’ whoop it up at awards shows and parties. Hartley hooked up with Chrishell Stause, known for her roles on DOOL and the Y&R, and were married until February 2021. One month later, Hartley married another Y&R alum, Sofia Pernas.

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5. Rebecca Herbst and Michael Saucedo

Does anyone remember Juan Santiago? Michael Saucedo had a brief stint on soap opera General Hospital (GH) from 1999-2001. While his character did not last that long on the show, there was one thing he was able to do — steal the heart of colleague Rebecca Herbst. Known to most GH fans as Elizabeth Webber, Herbst has been wowing fans (and leading men) in Port Charles for about 20 years now. The couple got hitched in 2001 and are still together (an incredible feat by any soap opera standards) and share three beautiful children together.

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4. Bill and Susan Hayes

The daytime couple that started it all is Doug and Julie Williams from Days of Our Lives. These two have always had tremendous chemistry on screen and off. Introduced on the DOOL set in 1970 by Macdonald Carey (who played Tom Horton on the soap), there was a spark between Bill and Susan that was undeniable. Despite the fact that their characters were not linked in any storylines when Bill entered the world of Salem, DOOL lead writer at the time William Bell noticed something special between the two immediately, and a daytime super couple was born. The real-life couple was also born during that time, and even after over 40 years of marriage, Bill and Susan Hayes remain happily in love.

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3. Thad Luckinbill and Amelia Heinle

J.T. Hellstrom and Victoria Newman had quite the love affair when they were on Y&R. A boy from the wrong side of the tracks falls in love with a million dollar princess and precious daughter of the one and only Victor Newman, fans simply could not get enough of these two on the daytime screen. Alas, there must have have been something a little more to those love scenes when it came to these two. Luckinbill and Heinle had clearly fallen for each other, and fast. They were married in 2007 and have two children together, a son born in 2007 and a daughter born in 2009. Unfortunately, the once happy couple are no longer together. They separated in March 2017.

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2. Eileen Davidson and Vince Van Patten

Eileen Davidson’s life could mirror her soap character Ashley Abbott’s on the Y&R, as both are beautiful, successful, and a tad unlucky in love. Davidson has fallen in and out of love a few times and has been married three times. It seems, however, that her luck has changed, with her third marriage to current husband Vince Van Patten. Son of late well-known television actor Dick Van Patten, Vince is a World Poker Tour commentator, ex-tennis pro, and has dabbled in acting himself. In fact, he met Eileen while on the Y&R set back in 2000. Briefly playing Ashley’s boyfriend (Christian Page) during a cruise on the daytime soap, the two made an instant connection and have never looked back. Making it official on April 13 of 2003, the two are still happily married, and they have a son together.

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1. Doug and Cindy Davidson

As the longest current cast member of Y&R, starting his stint with the daytime soap in 1978, fans have grown to love and admire the handsome, smart and charismatic Paul Williams. There are many neat things about Davidson that people do not know like his BFF is rock star Rick Springfield and he is still married his longtime love Cindy Fisher, who he met on the Y&R set many years ago. Fisher was on the show in the early ’80s and met and fell in love with Davidson (who could blame her) and the two got hitched in 1984. Married over thirty years, the couple has two kids, Calyssa and Caden. Aside from Y&R, Fisher has also done film, stage and television work and was on Days of Our Lives, playing two characters, Patti Griffin (1978 and 1979) and Diane Parker (1984).

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.