Riegel Speaks Out On Y&R Exit
When Eden Riegel's manager phoned her with the news that her run as Y&R's Heather was coming to an end after a year-and-a-half, Riegel says, "It was a hard call to get. It's a hard call to get anytime, I guess — I've never been fired before [laughs]!"
Her manager's confirmation capped off a bizarre day in which social media brought the news to her attention before she got official word from the show. "My fan club president sent me a link to an article that said [I'd been let go] and she asked, 'Is this true?' And I e-mailed her back and said, 'Absolutely not. Don't worry.' And then as the day progressed, on Twitter, there was just so much chatter and so many people saying, 'What's going on? I heard you're leaving, I'm so sorry.' I thought, 'Wow. What if this was true?' It started to become more and more of a reality, like, 'Is this really possible?' But by 3 or 4 in the afternoon, when I hadn't heard anything, I was like, 'No, this is for sure not true.' So I went on and tweeted, 'It's absolutely not true.' And then an hour later, I got the call from my manager and I was like, 'Oh. Boy, do I have egg on my face [laughs].' But it was fine. And actually, the way that it happened, in that it was so public, sort of took the onus off of me. I didn't then have to go to Twitter to say, 'Hey, I have bad news.' Everybody in the world knew before me! So, instead, I got to skip right to the, 'Hey, we love you, we're so sorry,' part, which is the more fun part anyway, people getting all up in arms: 'How can they do this to you? We're on your side!' And that's always nice to hear."
The actress is taking the news in stride. "When my manager gave me the news, I said, 'Oh, okay, thanks, I'll talk to you soon.' And she was like, 'Wait, you don't want to, like, say anything, or talk to me about anything?' I said, 'I'm really tired, I really just want to go take a nap.' Jack has been sleeping so poorly, I've just been so out of it. But I went and hung out with my baby, and I was so sad, and I was looking at him and I literally forgot it even happened, which you'd think would be impossible! So the timing is really good for me that way because I have the greatest distraction in the world. I'm a very lucky girl. I have the sweetest little boy, the sweetest husband, and I'm sure in a few months, I'll look back at this and think, 'Thank God that happened, because if it hadn't, I would never have had this experience or that opportunity.' I'm feeling very good about finding the positive in this."
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