General Hospital’s Eva LaRue Spills the Tea About the *Real* Reason She’s Out as Natalia

Everybody was excited when they heard that General Hospital had cast All My Children fave Eva LaRue as Blaze’s mother, Natalia. That is, they were excited until they met the character, a grating momager who spewed homophobic remarks as if they were in any way acceptable.

Needless to say, the character didn’t catch on. So a year and change after LaRue’s debut, Natalia is being written off. (Here’s a big hint as to how.) The daytime vet, whose Maria was one of All My Children’s most beloved heroines, suspected that the end was nigh when General Hospital stuck a fork in Natalia’s flirtation with Mob boss Sonny.

“People just weren’t buying it, because they just hated my character so much,” the actress tells Soap Opera Digest. “I was so vilified that no matter what [the writers] did, it just wasn’t a solid enough rehabilitation that they were gonna buy me with Sonny.”

Their friendship, relationship, whatever you want to call it… It was not a great look for the dimpled don. Natalia decried his daughter Kristina’s relationship with her daughter Blaze as unnatural and kept the erstwhile Alison closeted her entire life. Natch, son Marco, who is also LGBTQ+, is no bigger a fan of Natalia’s than Blaze or viewers.

So there’s a lesson there, for all the soaps. If you’re bringing on daytime royalty and hope to keep them around long-term, maybe, just maybe don’t saddle them with an altogether unlikable character. Days of Our Lives would do well to remember that if it should happen to hire LaRue to raise Javi’s mother Hilda from the dead. Bold & Beautiful might want to keep it in mind, too, if it casts her as the new Eye On Fashion editor who turns Dollar Bill’s head.