Five Things That Happened On May 18 In Soap History

In 1999, Asa Buchanan (Phil Carey) and Renee Divine (Patricia Elliott) remarried on One Life To Live. As the ceremony (conducted by Rev. Andrew Carpenter) got underway, Renee called the proceedings to a halt and told Asa she couldn't marry him. They left to talk privately, and Renee confided in Asa her long-held secret: When they had first been involved years ago, she had given birth to their son and given him up for adoption. Asa was shocked, but promised Renee that he would help her track down their son down. They then returned to the altar to say, "I do."

In 2010, One Life to Live's Starr Manning (Kristen Alderson) and Cole Thornhart (Brandon Buddy) shared a romantic dance at prom during the conclusion of the show’s three-day musical event, “Starr X’d Lovers.”

In 2015, General Hospital aired the second of its two live episodes, during which Nina Reeves (Michelle Stafford) impulsively wed Ric Lansing (Rick Hearst) in front of a stunned Franco Baldwin (Roger Howarth). Reflecting on the experience to Soap Opera Digest, Hearst said that going live "was a high that you don’t quite get when you’re taping every single day, because you have the safety net of if you happen to flub a line, a word, you’re in the wrong place, a camera thing doesn’t work out, whatever, you can stop.”

In 2017 on Bold and Beautiful, Brooke Logan (Katherine Kelly Lang) and Bill Spencer (Don Diamont) tied the knot. The ceremony, officiated by Justin Barber (Aaron D. Spears), was set in the living room of the Forrester mansion. Diamont admitted to Soap Opera Digest at the time, "I had really expected and wanted, as did Kelly, given that it’s been so long coming and they’ve been through so much, a location wedding of some kind, a big momentous occasion, and we were initially a little disappointed that it wasn’t that. But then, when we shot it, I said to Kelly at the end of shooting that day that I really liked that it was small and intimate in the living room, because that made it all about the couple. It was about the two of them, about the vows and not about the locale."

In 2020 on Days of Our Lives, a hospitalized Victor Kiriakis (John Aniston) was horrified as he read a letter from his incarcerated wife, Maggie, and it dawned on him that it was a suicide note. (At the time, Maggie believed that she was responsible for the deaths of Adrienne and Sarah's baby.) He tried to reach the warden at the prison, but was placed on hold. Fortunately, he was able to reach Xander, who burst into Statesville, determined to stop Maggie from taking her own life.