DAYS Casting Shocker: Tamara Braun Out As Ava

Tamara Braun is exiting Days of Our Lives as Ava Vitali. The actress announced her departure on Instagram, writing, “I wish this was an April Fool’s Joke but it’s not. This is Ava’s last week on Days. Last couple of days really. Sad but true. I’ve been gone since late July of last year but you can still catch Ava on your screens until April 3rd!”

The Daytime Emmy-winning actress went on to say, “I miss being with my Days pals. They are a really good group of caring individuals and being with them was a joy. Thanks for all the #love #kindness and #support during Ava’s latest Salem stint. 🩷”

Memory Lane

Braun, who debuted as Ava in 2008 after a four-year run as Carly Corinthos on General Hospital, has always had a special place in her heart for the complex character. “I absolutely love Ava,” said Braun upon returning in 2023. “She’s had different incarnations. Some I’ve enjoyed better than others, but what’s beautiful about her is that she has so many layers to her, and there’s a lot of history there. It’s always fun to see what avenue whoever’s writing at the time is going to take with her. I was interested to see where she was going to go this time. Even when they let you know, you never really know where it’s ultimately going to go. That definitely keeps you on your toes and keeps it fun and exciting and new.”

During Braun’s original stint as the mentally unstable Ava, she stalked her ex-lover, Steve, and his family in Ireland and orchestrated the plane crash that killed Shawn Brady, Sr., en route back to Salem. After a brief fling with John, she fled town to escape charges stemming from the crash. The brief, yet powerful six-month stint earned Braun the Daytime Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in 2009.

After finishing her DAYS run, Braun joined the All My Children cast as Reese Williams, a character she played from 2008 to 2009. She was thrust into a front burner love story opposite Eden Riegel, who portrayed Erica Kane’s daughter, Bianca. The pair went on to make history when they married on February 13, 2009, in what was daytime’s first same-sex wedding.

Following a short run as Nicole’s sister, Taylor Walker, in 2011, Braun resurfaced as DAYS’s Ava in 2015. She was befriended by Kristen, who encouraged her to reveal a huge secret to Steve. In 2016, Ava dropped the bombshell: She’d had Steve’s child decades ago, but her father sold the baby boy on the black market. Ava forced Steve to help her search for their son by kidnapping Kayla, but it led to a dead end, literally. A man who handled the baby’s adoption claimed he had died of pneumonia. A devastated Ava spiraled. She began tormenting Steve and Kayla and manipulating their son, Joey. That is, until a drunk Joey put an end to it all by smothering Ava to death. Steve took the blame, but was exonerated when the ISA concocted a story that they’d orchestrated Ava’s “demise.”

Braun returned to GH in a new role in 2017 when she was cast as Kim Nero, the mother of Josslyn’s boyfriend, Oscar. The teenager was ultimately revealed to have terminal brain cancer and died in 2019, paving the way for the actress to win her second Daytime Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in 2020.

It turned out Ava wasn’t really dead. Her old pal, Kristen, had miraculously saved her. She returned to Salem in 2020, forcing Philip to launder mob money through Titan Industries in exchange for paying of his gambling debt to the Vitali family. Ava learned that her and Steve’s son, Tripp, was alive. (Steve and Kayla had tracked the young man down in 2017 and brought him back to Salem.) She reunited with Tripp and was ultimately responsible for clearing him of rape charges brought against him by Allie Horton in 2021. Ava realized that her other son, Charlie Dale, was actually the assailant. Soon after, Ava buried Charlie’s body after he was murdered by Jan Spears.

Ava moved on and had a brief romance with Rafe, then, in 2022, found love with Jake, who proposed to her minutes before he was shot and killed. Although Gabi convinced Ava to lie that she and Jake were married, so Ava would control his shares of DiMera Enterprises, EJ uncovered the truth and demanded Ava leave Salem or go to prison for fraud. Ava retaliated by abducting Susan, EJ’s mother. The plot went awry when Ava, haunted by visions of Charlie, drove her car off a cliff and Susan, who was in the back seat, was presumed “dead.” Ava followed that up by planting a bomb at Susan’s memorial service, as her sanity slipped further and further away. Ultimately, she was committed to Bayview Sanitarium.

In 2023, Braun was back as Ava and reunited with Steve Burton, who was playing Harris on DAYS, a fellow patient at the same mental facility. The two actors had previously played best friends Carly and Jason on GH, and Braun was thrilled to be working with Burton again. “Steve and I have always had a good working relationship,” Braun told Digest at the time. “I certainly wanted to capitalize on that. We seem to have a good chemistry and flow, so it was an easy thing to jump into. We were in real early on my first day, so there wasn’t a lot of time to chat. But the next day we had the ability to talk and try to figure out where these two characters were going and what it was about.”

Ava and Harris eventually fell in love, but the relationship ended in 2023 because the Navy SEAL realized that Ava’s criminal tendencies would always have them at odds. Braun’s work opposite Burton earned her yet another Daytime Emmy nod in 2024. This time she was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

After Harris left town to follow up a lead to find Megan Hathaway, Ava began a friendship with Brady that eventually turned into a romance. However, it couldn’t survive the constant meddling of Brady’s daughter, Rachel, or his possessive ex, Kristen. As a result, Ava finally decided to cut her losses and end things.

Braun as Ava opposite Eric Martsolf as Brady in a scene from February.