Doug Davidson leaving The Young and the Restless after forty years

While many soap-opera departures don’t tend to generate huge headlines, it’s a little bit different when you are Doug Davidson. After all, this is a man who has been on The Young and the Restless for forty years! This is a guy who ahs been a huge part of the franchise’s history and it’s rather-strange to even imagine the series without him. Yet, this is precisely what many longtime fans of the series may have to end up doing now.

In a new interview with Soaps.com, Davidson confirmed his exit and noted that it’s something he knew was coming for a rather-long time now:

My contract was not renewed in January, I went on recurring, but just until they had new people in place. I have only 2 shows that haven’t aired and no dates. So, as far as I know, I am gone.

Ultimately, it does seem like Davidson’s character of Paul is going to take a bow, and these sort of things are often inevitable for soaps as they look to either make some sort of creative shake-up or to figure out a way to cut some costs. That’s something that has been going on in the world of soaps for a long time and we have a feeling that this is something that is not going to be slowing down anytime soon.

The show ultimately is going to go on, but unless The Young and the Restless chooses to kill off Paul (which would be an especially-cruel thing to do), we have a hard time imagining that the door will be completely closed on him coming back. We’ve certainly seen a number of examples of that over the past couple of decades.

What do you think about Davidson departing The Young and the Restless? Do you want to see him again if this does turn out to be the end of the road for him at the moment? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments!

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