Who Is Martin Laurent on The Young and the Restless?
Traci Abbott (Beth Maitland) was wary about contacting Martin Laurent on The Young and the Restless, which is perfectly understandable given what he put her through. Here’s a look back at his reign of terror, which finally came to an end in April 2025.
Double Trouble
Christopher Cousins, who had already been playing psychiatrist Alan Laurent since April 2024, began portraying Alan’s identical twin, Martin, in May of that year. It was then revealed that Martin had been posing as Alan when “Alan’s” psychological manipulation of Ashley Abbott (Eileen Davidson) a year earlier eventually caused her to develop dissociative identity disorder.
When Ashley learned the truth, she was was horrified. Alan escaped from the closet where his brother had trapped him to try to talk Martin down. But instead, Martin attacked his sibling and the two men took a plunge from the balcony of Alan’s Paris apartment. While it initially appeared that Martin had died while Alan only suffered a broken arm, that was not the case.
In fact, Martin had been the one to survive the deadly fall. Once again, he assumed his brother’s identity, growing closer to Traci by supporting her while Ashley received professional treatment for her DID back in France. Posing as Alan, Martin even helped hypnotize Sharon Newman (Sharon Case) to recover her memories to prove that she had not run Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford) off the road or killed Heather Stevens (Vail Bloom).
When “Alan” eventually popped the question to Traci, she was thrilled, unaware of her beau’s true identity. While making arrangements for his upcoming wedding to Traci, Martin was also secretly holding Sharon and Phyllis hostage as part of a twisted psychological experiment to see if he could make the two rivals work together.
But the bride-to-be grew suspicious of her future husband when “Alan’s” phone began blowing up with notifications about his prisoners attempting to escape. When Sharon and Phyllis were finally freed, Traci learned of their experience and connected it to the notifications “Alan” had been receiving. Returning from scouting a wedding venue in Paris, Martin was dismayed when Traci said she wanted to postpone their nuptials.
The jig was up for Martin when he was arrested by Detective Chance Chancellor (Conner Floyd) — and even though he continued to insist that he was Alan, no one believed him anymore. At the police station, Sharon and Phyllis confronted their tormentor, and Martin finally snapped, angrily declaring that he was the true genius and a superior psychologist to Alan.
Traci was heartbroken to learn that the man she had loved was dead, and that she’d nearly married an impostor. She thought that when Martin was shipped off to prison, that would be the last she would have to deal with him. But in July 2026, Traci agreed to contact him to see if he could help Diane (Susan Walters) track down her own kidnapper, Dr. Laurence Markham (Jere Burns).
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