General Hospital Comings & Goings: Paige Herschell Exits as Jacinda
General Hospital has written out Jacinda Bracken, with Paige Herschell exiting the ABC soap after more than a year as the troublemaking character. Soap Opera Digest has confirmed that Herschell has left the show and that Jacinda’s exit was storyline-dictated.
How Did Jacinda Leave GH?
Jacinda’s story came to a swift end in the Tuesday, August 11 episode when, after Willow (Katelyn MacMullen) took out a restraining order against her to block Jacinda’s access to young Wiley (Viron Weaver) and Amelia (Sienna Goerisch), Jacinda retaliated by drugging Willow’s coffee with molly. Her boyfriend, Willow’s ex-husband Michael (Rory Gibson), was far from thrilled by this — especially since his kids were with their mom when she consumed the laced drink.
After tending to Willow and removing the evidence (the coffee cup), Michael chastised Jacinda for her rash action, which he worried would give Willow leverage to try to wrest custody from him. He told a devastated Jacinda that they needed to break up — and she needed to leave town. Michael gave her money to fund her new life far from port Charles, and the heartbroken duo shared a tearful goodbye.
Paige Herschell’s GH History
Jacinda was originally conceived as a short-term role, a paid escort who Nina (Cynthia Watros) and Portia (Brook Kerr) enlisted to drug Drew (Cameron Mathison) with ketamine so that he’d make a public spectacle of himself — and when Soap Opera Digest spoke to Herschell last year, she admitted that she was shocked when she booked the role. Jacinda, she noted “was so opposite [the real] me that honestly, I submitted the [audition] tape and was like, ‘Okay, well, I had a fun time, but good riddance to that one!’”
Herschell’s short debut arc ended with Jacinda being banished to Australia. “I thought, ‘Okay, well that’s that!'” Herschell told Digest. “But I had so much fun with everybody that I was just left feeling like, ‘Oh … that’s all? I want more!’”
A few months later, she got word that GH was interested in continuing Jacinda’s story. “I was very happy to get the call to come back,” she recalled.
When Jacinda returned to Port Charles in September 2025, she agreed to pose as Michael’s love interest, specifically to provide him with an alibi for the night of Drew’s shooting. Their arrangement quickly turned into the real deal and the duo began dating.
Herschell gave her leading man, Rory Gibson, rave reviews, enthusing, “Wow, what a great scene partner. He is so grounded and he’s such a sweet guy. I’m a bit of a neurotic person in my life; I’m a little chaotic and all over the place. But when Rory and I have had these scenes together, he just brings me to like a calm state where we can really connect and play and I’m very happy that it’s him that I get to keep being paired with.”
But just shy of a year after Jacinda’s comeback, the show has opted to bring her storyline to an end.
Are you disappointed that Herschell — and Jacinda — are leaving GH? Share your thoughts about her departure in the comments below.
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