Fans of The Young and the Restless were crushed when Hunter King and Michael Mealor were unable to work out new deals with the CBS soap opera, which resulted in their characters, Summer Newman and Kyle Abbott, moving to Italy earlier this summer. But in an unexpected twist of fate, the pair will soon be heading back to the canvas!
A Y&R spokesperson has confirmed to Soap Opera Digest that King and Mealor are on their way back to Genoa City. However, before anyone gets too excited, their return is -- sadly -- just going to be a short visit.
King and Mealor, who last aired on Monday, August 9, recently opened up via an exit interview with Soap Opera Digest about the circumstances around their departure from Y&R. The pair confirmed that they left the CBS soap opera when contract negotiations for each reached an impasse at the same time -- and, as of press time, nothing had changed to bring them back permanently.
Said Mealor at the time about his contract situation, "My manager and I were working ourselves through it, and I think a couple of weeks into it... we were about to film a scene and, Hunter, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was, 'Hey, I've got to talk to you about some business stuff.' I didn't realize she was going through negotiations at the same time, so it kind of turned out to where I spilled everything. Negotiations are a private thing, and I was like, 'Hunter, this is what's happening....' It's difficult because you love the show and, you know, all that kind of stuff, and you're so dedicated to it. I mean, it was my life."
He continued, "We worked 50 weeks a year, four days a week, so, it becomes such a piece of your life and everyone there is family... You just weigh all of the options, and there are so many factors that go into it that it makes it difficult, and at the end of the day, we were just trying to come to a middle ground... and we ended up not seeing eye to eye on certain aspects of it all, and we decided that this chapter as we know it, for Kyle at least, seeing him every single day on TV, it's coming to a close as we know it."
As for King, she said, "I kind of echo everything that Michael said, yeah, we were going through contract negotiations at the exact same time... Michael did wind up telling me everything that was going on with his contract negotiations, I wanted to tell him everything that was going on with mine, but yeah, it's such an odd process when you're doing that but also feeling that you're family, so, it's definitely weird, especially with soap operas."
Both actors pointed out that they didn't know what could happen in the future, and both said that they could end up back in Genoa City.
"[It] doesn't mean we [won't] see Kyle again in the future. Who knows what happens?" Mealor shared.
King echoed her former co-star's sentiment with the comment, "I'm just kind of taking it day by day and figuring things out, but who knows what will happen? Nine years is a long time being on one show and I loved every second of it."
King and Mealor will be shooting their short return stint this week. Y&R fans can look forward to the scenes airing over multiple days in October.
How do you feel about Y&R's Hunter King and Michael Mealor shooting scenes for a short return visit to air this October? Would you like to see Summer and Kyle eventually return to the canvas permanently? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
