Melissa Claire Egan is thrilled to see that her former The Young and the Restless costar Justin Hartley has become such a big star. “It’s out of this world [to see his success]. He’s still one of my best friends,” Egan, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly at The Young and the Restless party celebrating 13,000 episodes of the soap opera at CBS Studios in Los Angeles last month.
“He’s amazing and deserves all the success. He worked really hard for it.” Egan mentioned Hartley, 47, when asked about her favorite Y&R plot twist of all time.
“I love the whole story line of when Gabriel Bingham was really Adam [Newman]. It was when Justin Hartley was playing Adam, and [there was] the big reveal of he was gay, but really he was Adam pretending to be [gay],” Egan said. “He had a face transplant, and then [there was] that big reveal when [my character] Chelsea [Lawson] finds out that this has been Adam the whole time.
I love that story. I thought that was really fun and soapy and juicy.” Egan has portrayed Chelsea on the series since 2011.
During that time, Hartley, Michael Muhney and Mark Grossman have stepped into the role of Adam Newman, who went from Chelsea’s love interest to her ex-husband. After appearing on Y&R from 2014 to 2016, Hartley went on to star in the NBC drama This Is Us from 2016 to 2022. He currently stars in the CBS drama Tracker .
Hartley met his wife, Sofia Pernas , on the set of Y&R . They tied the knot in 2021. While not everyone finds love on.