Days of Our Lives Comings & Goings: Galen Gering, Elia Cantu Taken Off Contract?
Hot on the heels of the news that Days of Our Lives has hired General Hospital alum Sofia Mattsson (ex-Sasha) in a mystery role, it appears that the show has taken two other actors off contract. As first reported by the expert DAYS watcher and historian Jason47, the closing credits for the March 30 episode featured the removal of three actors from the contract section — Marissa Reyes, who ended her run as Arianna Horton last week, Galen Gering (Rafe) and Elia Cantu (Jada).
Here To Stay?
Gering and Cantu are still appearing in the credits — just in the section reserved for recurring players. Reached for comment, a DAYS spokesperson said, “We never comment on actor contract status but, rest assured, Rafe and Jada are still in Salem.” The show does have a roster of recurring (i.e., not under contract) players who rotate in and out, including its new Rachel, Lorelei Olivia Mote, and the recently resurfaced Brandon Beemer (Shawn) and Casey Moss (JJ), so going off contract does not necessarily mean that either Rafe or Jada will be written out of Salem.
Gering first joined the DAYS ranks in October 2008 following his 1999-2008 run as Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald on Passions. When his contract expired back in 2020, it looked like he would be leaving the show, and the actor revealed as a guest on The Cliff Dorman Show in January of that year that “I’ve got a couple of weeks of shows to do [to wrap it up].” But in August, as the show prepared to resume production following its shutdown during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Entertainment Weekly reported that the show inked him to a new contract.
Cantu made her first appearance on the show in July 2022, telling Digest, “Working on a soap is a challenging job. It’s been a beautiful growing experience for me, because I come from a lot of prime-time experience [and] coming from that world to daytime is so different … It reminds me a lot of theater.”
The actors’ characters were once a serious item, but they broke up last year and neither Rafe nor Jada are currently in a relationship. They do, however, continue to work together in their capacity as law enforcers.
Any change in the contract status of Cantu and Gering indicated in the credits currently airing would reflect a change approximately 10 months ago, given how far in advance the show tapes in the episodes streaming now on Peacock.
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