Though there has been no official announcement from the show, Emmy winner Kristoff St. John (Neil Winters) took to social media to welcome Josh Griffith back as head writer of The Young and the Restless.
"Let's welcome @joshgriffith59 back to Y&R!" St. John exclaimed on Twitter. "His inspiring leadership, focusing on the core characters, will prevail."
Let's welcome @joshgriffith59 back to Y&R! His inspiring leadership, focusing on the core characters, will prevail. The character assassination of Paul @DougDavidsonYR was brutal. Raise your voice! Bill Bell Sr. created this legendary show. It is our duty to protect his legacy.
— Kristoff St John (@kristoffstjohn1) December 23, 2018
As Soap Central first reported last week, Mal Young will no longer be serving as head writer or executive producer of The Young and the Restless. Young issued a statement indicating that he "felt like it was a good time to move on." Other published reports claim that Young was let go. Per a long-standing policy, The Young and the Restless does not comment on executive changes.
St. John went on to say that he felt strongly about the decision to drop longtime Y&R star Doug Davidson (Paul Williams) to recurring status earlier this year. The decision came on the heels of Davidson celebrating his 40th anniversary with the CBS soap.
"The character assassination of Paul was brutal," St. John wrote. "Raise your voice! Bill Bell Sr. created this legendary show. It is our duty to protect his legacy."
It is still too soon to know how Griffith will ultimately change the course of the show's storytelling. Griffith has a fairly extensive history with The Young and the Restless. He joined the show as a breakdown writer in July 2006 and eventually worked his way up to head writer the following year. He also had a two-year stint as executive producer from October 2006 to October 2008. His most recent stint as head writer ran from October 2012 to November 2013.
Would you like to leave a congratulatory message for Griffith? Do you have a particular memory from Griffith's last term as head writer? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
