Days of Our Lives Alum Lisa Rinna Says Leading Man ‘Made My Life a Living Hell’ in New Tell-All
Lisa Rinna, who originated the role of Billie Reed on Days of Our Lives back in 1992, reflected on her experience on the show in her new tell-all, You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It — specifically, the toxic behavior she alleges was exhibited on set by her Salem leading man, Robert Kelker-Kelly, who played Bo Brady from 1992-95.
Backstage Tension
“Behind-the-scenes we hated each other,” Rinna wrote. She was cast on DAYS just months after Kelker-Kelly assumed the iconic role of Bo after the departure of Peter Reckell, who created Bo and had, at that time, played the character from 1983-87 and from 1990-92. Kelker-Kelly came to DAYS after a three-year run on NBC’s Another World, where he played Sam Fowler from 1987-90.
When Rinna was introduced as Billie, Bo was on the Salem scene without his supercouple partner, Hope Brady (Kristian Alfonso), who had been presumed dead in 1990, and a romance began to flourish between him and Billie. But even as Bo and Billie’s popularity skyrocketed, the dynamic between the actors was toxic, to hear Rinna tell it. “He made my life a living hell on the set of DAYS,” asserted the actress, who after exiting the show in 1995 went on to play Taylor McBride on Melrose Place, star on eight seasons of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and appeared as a contestant on the current season of the reality competition series The Traitors.
Declaring that Kelker-Kelly was “horrible to me,” Rinna mused of his behavior, “I’d go so far as to say [he was] verbally abusive. He was passive aggressive, manipulative, and played weird mind games,” she alleged, adding, “I had to work with him every day, often half naked to do love scenes. If I didn’t do what he wanted, he’d give me the silent treatment.” She characterized the actor as “a ticking time bomb” and revealed, “I never knew when I arrived on set each morning if I’d get nice Robert Kelker-Kelly or dark Robert Kelker-Kelly. He was unpredictable and it was exhausting.”
The actress confided, “I regret that I stood up to Robert, because I was too young, and I was not willing to make waves at my awesome new job … I still lacked assertiveness and self-confidence when it came to men.” She then asserted, “If Robert Kelker-Kelly was in my Housewives orbit today, he never would have gotten away with his behavior.”
While the tension between her and Kelker-Kelly had a negative impact on Rinna’s DAYS experience, she praised her female co-stars, including Kristian Alfonso, who returned as Hope (or “Gina,” as the amnesiac character was known at first) in 1994. “Kristian and I commiserated and looked out for each other,” wrote Rinna. “All the women on DAYS did.”
In June 1995, Kelker-Kelly was abruptly let go from DAYS for what a show spokesperson described at the time as “creative reasons.” Kelker-Kelly himself told Soap Opera Digest, “The only thing I was told was ‘artistic differences.'” The following month, Reckell was rehired as Bo. Rinna opted to exit the show later that same year, but reprised Billie from 2002-03 and 2012-13, popping up again in 2018 and on the DAYS spinoff Beyond Salem in 2022.
Kelker-Kelly went on to return to Another World in a new role, Bobby Reno (also known as Shane Roberts), from 1996-98. He then appeared on General Hospital as Stavros Cassadine from 2001-02, with subsequent appearances in 2003, 2013 and 2014. From 1997 until the early 2010s, he was married to Miriam Parrish, who played Jamie Caldwell on DAYS from 1993-96.
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Soap Opera Digest does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.