General Hospital saw actors who exited, causing a lot of anxiety and outrage among the fandom. We’re going to tell you why these five actors really left the ABC soap.
Some of these exits are pretty recent, while one reaches back a little bit, but they were all very dramatic and hit the fandom hard.
Marcus Coloma’s Shocking Exit as Nicholas Cassadine: Unraveling the Mystery
This is one of the more recent exits we’ll discuss: Marcus Coloma’s departure as Nikolas Cassadine (Marcus Coloma). After Tyler Christopher (formerly Nikolas Cassadine) was terminated from GH due to addiction issues—which he later fully admitted cost him the job—the soap looked for a replacement. They found Marcus Coloma and brought him in as Nikolas Cassadine.
Of course, many people missed Tyler Christopher, but Marcus Coloma was able to win over the fandom. He inked a three-year deal with GH, first airing in October 2019, and he stepped seamlessly into the role. I thought he did a really good job, and of course, I love Tyler Christopher, but Marcus Coloma did well. Just past the three-year mark, his last air date was January 2023.
Everyone wondered what happened because Marcus Coloma’s exit as Nikolas seemed to come out of nowhere. He announced the exit, and there were many rumors and much controversy surrounding its abruptness. So, let’s talk about what happened. The first thing was that his three-year deal as Nicholas had just ended. Then, his representative stated that Marcus Coloma had health issues from a recent COVID exposure at that time.
Adam Huss Steps in on GH
Adam Huss then stepped into the role to wrap up Nikolas Cassadine’s run. This left everyone wondering why he left, especially since Marcus Coloma didn’t even finish taping his final scenes as Nicholas. There was some gossip that Marcus Coloma was upset his contract wasn’t renewed, and scuttlebutt suggested he refused to film his final scenes as Nicholas Cassadine.
However, Marcus Coloma’s representative strongly denies that’s how it happened. Clearly, something did occur, but the exact reason Marcus Coloma exited remains a mystery. We do know his contract wasn’t renewed, and I don’t think he was happy about it. Adam Huss continues to sub in as Nikolas Cassadine on an as-needed basis.
Anthony Geary’s Legendary Departure: Why Luke Spencer Left General Hospital
Now, we’re going to reach back a few years and look at why Anthony Geary left General Hospital as the iconic Luke Spencer. This was such a big exit; we have to talk about it. He had been an icon since the 80s. Luke and Laura Spencer‘s (Genie Francis) 1981 wedding was one of the most-watched TV moments of all time.
Over the years, Tony Geary had 17 Daytime Emmy nominations and eight wins. So, why leave General Hospital? In fact, he had stepped away from playing Luke several times over the years. He left in 1984 and stayed gone for several years. He returned in 1991 but said he was tired of playing Luke. For a while, they had Geary playing his doppelganger cousin, Bill Eckert.
But fans didn’t like Bill Eckert; they wanted Luke. So, GH killed off Bill Eckert, and Tony Geary was back to playing Luke in 1993. Then they introduced the dissociative identity disorder storyline, where his character went dark and did all these devious things. Fans really hated that and started calling him “Fluke,” a.k.a. “Fake Luke.”
Tony Geary’s Permanent Exit from GH
Tony Geary then left for good when his contract expired in mid-2015. The Luke actor said he was weary of the grind and had been tired of it for 20 years. He also had some things to say about then-head writer Ron Carlivati. Although he never mentioned him by name. He just referred to him as “the writer” and basically said they didn’t like each other.
He was not happy about the writer. Tony Geary also said he didn’t want to collapse and die on the GH set and have that be the end of his life. So, he walked away from the role of Luke. He moved to Amsterdam, where he still lives now with his husband, Claudio Gama. Tony Geary’s last air date was in July 2015.
Luke’s Off-Screen Death
But then he reprised the role of Luke Spencer one last time in May 2017 for Jane Elliot’s last episode as Tracy Quartermaine (Jane Elliot). She said she was retiring, although since then she’s unretired and came back to General Hospital to stay. Tony Geary came back to honor Jane Elliot’s exit, but he did not speak even one single line of dialogue as Luke.
The General Hospital writers ultimately killed off the character off-screen in a gondola accident set up by Victor Cassadine (Charles Shaughnessy). In the end, Tony Geary was just tired of playing the same character for so long, and he wanted to do something else with his life, which he has gone and done.
Fan Outrage: The Controversial Exit of Kelly Monaco as Sam McCall
Let’s talk about a more recent exit that had fans absolutely on fire, and they are still wanting GH to reverse it: Kelly Monaco as Sam McCall. General Hospital stunned fans when they ended Kelly Monaco’s run as Sam McCall with her death in late October 2024. Originally, the character’s death seemed to be from complications of her surgery to donate part of her liver to save Lulu Spencer‘s (Alexa Havins) life.
But then, more than a month later, we got Kelly Monaco’s actual last air date on General Hospital in early December 2024 during a flashback when it was finally confirmed that Sam was murdered by Cyrus Renault (Jeff Kober). We had actually leaked that it was him who killed Sam even before her character’s death, before anyone else knew it. We leaked that pretty early on.
Kelly Monaco Didn’t Leave General Hospital by Choice
For more than 20 years, Kelly Monaco had been a huge fan favorite as Sam. So, why did she leave? Well, it wasn’t Kelly Monaco’s choice to leave. She posted, but then later deleted, a comment saying that since Billy Miller (formerly Jason Morgan and Drew Cain) was fired. Her storyline was stripped.
She posted that in response to some people saying that she was offered a low pay rate that she wouldn’t accept. Then she came back and said, “No, that’s not the case at all,” and basically said they had dismantled the character that she had worked so hard to develop. Kelly Monaco said it was “retaliation at its finest” and promised to release more “tea” about why she was fired.
Kelly Monaco Never Got the Chance to Tell Her Story
She never did go into any more detail about why GH fired her. I don’t know if they hit her with an NDA or something like that. Kelly Monaco’s mom had some things to say about the firing, as did Billy Miller’s mom, who said she thought the powers that be at GH are “stupid and evil.” Fans were outraged.
They launched a campaign, including a New York Times billboard and trucks with her picture on them driving by the ABC studio lot, demanding GH producers undo Kelly Monaco’s firing and save Sam McCall. Clearly, that didn’t pan out. So, maybe the producers will change their minds, but for now, it’s a no.
The Recast Controversy: Lexi Ainsworth’s Departure as Kristina Corinthos
Speaking of Davis girls, let’s talk about Lexi Ainsworth’s exit as Kristina Corinthos-Davis. This was another exit and recast that has not sat well with fans. Lexi Ainsworth has been replaced as Kristina Corinthos-Davis with Kate Mansi, a recast that’s still rubbing people the wrong way.
Fans got to know Lexi Ainsworth from the age of 16 when she was cast as the then-teenage daughter of Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) and lady lawyer Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn). Lexi Ainsworth did over 500 episodes on General Hospital. She was great in the role; no doubt she could have kept playing Kristina indefinitely. But now we have Kate Mansi in the role, a recast that many fans remain salty about.
The Truth Behind Lexi Ainsworth’s Exit
So, why did Lexi Ainsworth exit? Again, this was another case where I don’t think it was really up to her. Her last episode as Kristina was in late April 2023, and about a month later, in May 2023, Kate Mansi debuted as the recast Kristina Corinthos-Davis. Lexi Ainsworth has been very nice about it, saying it was a “mutually beneficial decision.”
However, many fans maintain that she was abruptly fired. Part of that is because the Kristina actress said she’d been really looking forward to an upcoming storyline, and it sounded like she was planning to play it and wasn’t planning to leave. Lexi Ainsworth said the upcoming storyline was actually inspired by a personal experience of hers and that she didn’t get to play it.
Some other sources hinted she was blindsided by the recast of Kristina, and there’s chatter that basically GH got the chance to hire Kate Mansi, who is a talented actress, and they jumped at it, abruptly cutting a longtime actress who was a fan favorite to make way for what they wanted. But Lexi Ainsworth took the high road and didn’t confirm any of that chatter.
Jonathan Jackson’s Commute Challenge: The Final Exit of Lucky Spencer
The last person we’re going to talk about is the exit of the legacy offspring character Lucky Spencer, played by Jonathan Jackson. This is somebody who has been recast over the years a couple of times but always came back to the role of Lucky. Jonathan Jackson debuted as GH’s Lucky when he was just 11.
Jonathan Jackson played the role from 1993 to 1999 when they wrote Lucky out for storyline reasons. The next year, in 2000, they were bringing the character back, but Jonathan Jackson was busy with other projects. So, they recast first with Jacob Young and then with Greg Vaughan. When Jonathan Jackson became available in 2009.
The chatter was that they asked Greg Vaughan to make way for him to return as Lucky. He stayed through 2011 but then walked away, saying the material just got way too heavy, and he was kind of burned out. He came back a couple of times in the interim, but those were just drop-ins. Jonathan Jackson’s run back then was absolutely amazing.
Jonathan Jackson’s Most Recent Departure from General Hospital
He won Best Younger Actor Emmys three times and had two more wins in the Supporting Actor category. After years of absence, fans were absolutely stunned when Jonathan Jackson came back as Lucky in the summer of 2024. That was supposed to be for a nice long stay, but it only lasted nine months before he said it became impractical to continue as Lucky.
That’s because Jonathan Jackson and his family live in Tennessee, and he was dividing his time between there and LA to tape GH. He just couldn’t keep doing it. So, this last time that Jonathan Jackson left as Lucky, he said it was because the experiment to cross-country commute failed, and he just couldn’t keep it going.
