General Hospital’s Rory Gibson Opens Up About the Dark Days That Followed His Young & Restless Exit: ‘I’ve Never Shared This Publicly, But… ’

These days, Rory Gibson is doing just fine, thank you. He’s been embraced by General Hospital fans as the new Michael Corinthos more enthusiastically than possibly any recast ever. And he’s absolutely crushing it on screen. But during the August 10 edition of on-screen dad Maurice Benard’s State of Mind (watch below), he admitted that when his stint as Young & Restless’ Noah Newman came to an end, things were “real, real bumpy for a while, ’cause we hit the [writers’ and actors’] strikes.”

How Bad Did Things Get for the Fan Fave?

Gibson said that, before General Hospital cast him, he’d been out of work for “a long time… I’ve never shared this publicly, but me and my fiancée were essentially homeless post-Young & Restless.”

At first Gibson went from on-contract to recurring. But then the CBS soap just stopped calling. That was fine for a while, he explained, because he was testing for exciting projects and felt that he was moving in the right direction. But then the strikes hit, and “everything goes dry.

“I already wasn’t making a ton of money, and it got to a point where, because she was modeling professionally and that dried up, too, neither of us were making any money, so we couldn’t afford to pay rent anymore,” he continued. “We were couch-surfing for almost a year.”

When Did It All Turn Around for Gibson?

After the strikes ended and the entertainment industry started up anew, Gibson started getting called in again on cool auditions. Then, of course, he was tapped to succeed Chad Duell as Michael on General Hospital. The move from Young & Restless was “kind of shocking,” he said. General Hospital’s tape day moves a bit faster, but Gibson noted that he liked that. It meant that the cast had to come prepared — and it keeps the energy up.