Y&R’s Jermaine Rivers on Damian’s Murder: ‘Let Me Have a Great Death’ (Exclusive)

A shocking twist at the end of the July 14 episode of Young and Restless saw Damian literally stabbed in the back. On the July 15 episode, Damian was pronounced dead, marking an end to Jermaine Rivers’s run on the soap, which kicked off back in February. The actor opened up to Soap Opera Digest about his departure from the show.

The Beginning of the End

When Rivers joined the cast, he was unaware of the fate that lay in store for his character. “I think Josh [Griffith, Y&R’s head writer and executive producer] already knew what he wanted to do with it, and just the secrecy around the casting, they wanted to maintain it really close to the vest because they were doing something really special,” the actor opines. “And I’m glad that they did, because I don’t like to telegraph. I like to take everything as it comes, so I can be really organically connected to the moment.”

It was at the end of April that Rivers was informed of the grisly direction the storyline was going to take for his alter ego, when Griffith had a chat with the actor. “We had a great talk,” Rivers says. “He was like, ‘Hey, look, couldn’t tell you then, but this has always been the plan. There’s nothing that you’ve done wrong. You’ve been amazing. But this was the story that we’re telling.’ I was like, ‘I get it.’ ”

Rivers was also aware of how important it is to keep a lid on storyline twists in the age of Internet spoilers. “I understand for the sake of the integrity of the show,” Rivers explains, “because we see it a lot, whether it be accidental, things get leaked, and the plans that the writing room, the executives, the producers have laid out for a year or nine months or however long to build up to a storyline or a great reveal, it gets ruined. I hate spoilers. I really do. It’s a detriment to the process.”

The actor maintains that while he was surprised to learn of his character’s violent end, he wasn’t upset that his gig was coming to an end so soon. He declares, “My position on it was whether it be one day, one year, or 10 years, I come in, I do the job that I was hired to do and I do it with a sense of gratitude and intentionality to be of service to the storyline, the character, and my fellow actors. And the rest,” he shrugs, “it is what it is.”

Saying Goodbye

Rivers shares that when told that his Y&R alter ego was going to be murdered, “What went through my mind was, ‘Let me have a great death. Let me make sure that I play it honestly so that way, the fans can feel something.’ This isn’t the first time I’ve died on camera, and I think each time I get a little bit better at it because it’s not so much how a character dies, but it’s how that character lived. If you did it right and you were truthful and intentional throughout the arc of your character’s story, it should have some weight and consequences.”

Though he wasn’t on the soap for a long time, Rivers did his best to use every scene in every episode as an opportunity to create a character that would be an integral part of the canvas. He muses, “We see the full breadth of Damian coming into Genoa City and having relationships and dealing with trauma and heartache and a multitude of real-life situations that people can relate to. And oh, by the way, he just so happened to fall in love and have a great moment before his demise. So for me, as an actor, that’s a gift. It’s a gift to be placed in a situation where you can have a tragic end.

“So for me, I’m celebrating that because I knew that was the task that I was given,” Rives continues. “When he knew back then — Josh Griffith and the powers-that-be at Y&R — where they wanted to ultimately go with the storyline with Aristotle Dumas and Cane Ashby’s resurgence. I was a huge part of that, and I’m honored. And I won’t walk back and look at it from a negative lens.”

Another World

If Damian had not perished so suddenly, Rivers believes there was a wealth of storyline that could have been explored for the character. “It probably would’ve been very interesting to have more scenes with Cane, because now we’re rivals,” he offers. “In this juncture of the storytelling, Lily chose Damian. So that would have been interesting to go back to Genoa City and play to that tension. That chess game could have been played out with me and Cane. And also, continuing building a relationship with my mom [Amy] and strengthening the relationship with Nate, and trying to salvage the friendship with Holden. I think there’s a multitude of things that probably would’ve been interesting to see and play.”

As Damian’s time came to an end, Rivers had to say good-bye to the studio he called home for the past months. “The most that I’m going to miss about The Young and the Restless is the cast and the crew,” he says. “It felt like a family. The show’s been around for 52 seasons, and it’s been excellent for 52 seasons. And it’s excellent because people genuinely enjoy being there and working with each other. I like to bring that element wherever I go, because if you feel good about what you do and you can make other people feel good about what they’re doing and you can be supportive, then that tide raises all the ships.”

Having embraced the challenge of daytime’s hectic production pace, Rivers would happily tackle a role on another soap. “I wouldn’t be opposed to it at all,” he shares. “But again, I’m an actor, so I want to do a multitude of things. I know that I’m a better actor now from being on Young and the Restless because I know I can handle this workload. So I would take that experience and these skills that I fine-tuned, and I can apply it somewhere else and learn something more there. I would probably like to do theater. I might want to do some more feature films, but I would never say no to any genre within the art of film and television.”

While acknowledging that being signed for a long-term contract on a soap opera could limit an actor’s opportunity to pursue other roles on the side, Rivers still sees it as another golden opportunity, declaring, “When you get to build a character and be part of an ensemble of people that really enjoy what they do and fans are behind you a hundred percent, then it’s a win-win for everybody.”