General Hospital Comings & Goings: Chris McKenna Exiting as Jack Brennan
General Hospital is saying good-bye to Chris McKenna, who has played Jack Brennan since February 2025. According to a new report from Soap Opera Network, the actor is exiting the soap, with Brennan purportedly set to be killed off.
Chris McKenna Out at GH
WSB Chief Jack Brennan was originally played by Charles Mesure, who debuted on December 1, 2023. Mesure chose to leave GH and he aired for the final time on January 30, 2025, just as Brennan’s romance with Carly Spencer (Laura Wright) was heating up.
McKenna made his Port Charles debut the following week, telling Soap Opera Digest that having known Wright for so long helped him jump right into the storyline. “I know it was jarring to the fans, the timing of the way I came in here, but Laura and I have known each other for decades and it was a really, really special thing as soon as we started working together,” he said. “The first thing we had to shoot was the Valentine’s Day episode and we immediately had to go right into the heavy romance. That could have been a challenge, but it was so much fun and she made it great.”
He began his stint on GH as a recurring player, but in August 2025, he confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that he had signed a contract with the show. “The overwhelming support from you beautiful people helped make it happen,” he wrote. “Appreciate you all so much. I’d love to give a big old (CLASSIFIED) kiss to each one of you!”
Even as McKenna inked a deal with the show, Brennan and Carly’s relationship was hitting the skids: When she discovered that he’d secretly recruited her daughter, Josslyn (Eden McCoy), as a WSB agent, she began plotting against him with the help of Valentin Cassadine (James Patrick Stuart), leading to a dramatic showdown this past spring in which Brennan learned that Carly had been playing him for months — and sleeping with his enemy, Valentin.
After his split from Carly — and surviving both a bout of locked-in syndrome courtesy of Nina Reeves (Cynthia Watros) and an attempt on his life by corrupt WSB Director Ross Cullum (Andrew Hawkes) — things seemed to be looking up for Brennan as he fell into a surprise sexual entanglement with Nina.
However, it now appears as though the Jack/Nina honeymoon period will soon be coming to an end.
McKenna’s exit from GH comes 26 years after he began his soap career at the age of 12, playing Joey Buchanan on ABC’s One Life to Live from 1990-93. In 2014, he returned to daytime to portray cop/murderer Mark Harding on CBS’s The Young and the Restless. After that gig ended in 2015, he played the short-term role of Dr. Hayden on The Bold and the Beautiful as Dr. Hayden.
News of the actor’s departure comes amid a rash of cast changes at the show. In July, Ryan Paevey (Cassius Faison) and Andrew Hawkes (Cullum) wrapped their runs, the show wrote out Maxie Jones, the long-running character played by Kirsten Storms (Maxie Jones), along with Maxie’s love interest, Damian Spinelli (Bradford Anderson), and Nathan Dean aired for the final time as Ethan Lovett. Meanwhile, GH introduced several new cast members, including Dean Geyer as Tristan Roberts and Kelly Kruger as Serena Baldwin.
How do you feel about Brennan leaving GH? Let us know in the comments below.
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.