In a very revealing interview during last week's episode of Oprah: Where Are They Now?, General Hospital's Genie Francis (Laura Spencer) shared some shocking details about her past with the ABC soap that just may leave some viewers' heads spinning.
The Emmy winner revealed that when she walked away from GH at the height of her fame in 1981, it was due both to drug and alcohol problems and to a coworker's shocking statement.
"I was having trouble with drugs and alcohol," she says. "I ended up one night in the hospital. The very next day I was told, 'Jeez, I'm sorry, you're going to have to come back to work tomorrow morning.' So I got back to work and then somebody came up to my door and knocked, and it was an awful moment in which I was told, 'You know what they said about you?' And I said, 'No, what did they say?' 'They said that it didn't matter if you lived or died because Tony [Geary, Luke Spencer] was the whole show.' And that hurt."
The statement was difficult for the then-19-year-old to process, leading her to make the rash decision to give up her daytime career. "I just decided that I don't matter, I'm nothing... Okay, 'Watch this, I'm gone,'" she continues. "I was angry. It was a hotheaded decision. I went a long distance to prove a point -- a very long distance. And it hurt me, too."
For more from Francis on her GH history and why it was difficult for her to work on other daytime dramas, check out the full Oprah: Where Are They Now? clip below.
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