Young and Restless Introduced Hayley Erin as Claire and Other Big Moments from October 2

In 1989, Beth Chamberlin made her Guiding Light debut as Beth Raines, who returned to Springfield as an amnesiac alongside Neil Everest, played by Patrick O’Connell, father of musicians Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell. The character of Beth had originally been played by Judi Evans, who went on to portray Days of Our Lives's Adrienne Johnson and Bonnie Lockhart, as well as Another World's Paulina. Evans was on GL from 1983-86. After Chamberlin assumed the role, she remained with the series all the way through to its final episode in 2009.

In 2003, Jacob Young (c., pictured with Justin Bruening as Jamie Martin and Alexa Havins as Babe Carey) made his All My Children debut as JR Chandler. The actor arrived in Pine Valley with two major soap credits under his belt: Rick Forrester on Bold and Beautiful (1997-99) and Lucky Spencer on General Hospital (2000-03), for which he won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actor in 2002. Young remained with AMC through to its finale in 2011. The actor had watched the show when he was growing up alongside his mom, he shared with Soap Opera Digest in 2015, and had been a fan of several of the stars he would end up in storyline alongside. "Michael E. Knight [ex-Tad Martin] and David Canary [ex-Adam/Stuart] and James Mitchell [ex-Palmer, AMC], of course. All those years later, there I was working with them!"

In 2015, Sam McCall (Kelly Monaco) accepted Patrick Drake’s (Jason Thompson) marriage proposal on General Hospital. Sam reminded Patrick that she had promised to give him a sign when she was ready to respond to the proposal, and she pulled out an actual sign that read, "Yes, Patrick I'll marry you" and featured a Sam/Patrick photo. A delighted Patrick (who had somewhat impulsively popped the question the previous month) popped come champagne for the couple to celebrate with, and slipped a toy ring belonging to his daughter, Emma, onto Sam's finger (later replacing it with a diamond).

In 2023, Hayley Erin made her Young and Restless debut as Claire Grace, who applied for a job to be Nikki Newman's assistant but was later revealed to be Nikki's granddaughter. This was not Erin's first time on the show, as she had played the role of Abby Newman from 2008-10. After exiting Y&R, Erin had appeared on General Hospital as Lauren "Kiki" Jerome, winning a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actress in 2019, the year after she wrapped her time in Port Charles. Erin told Soap Opera Digest of returning to Y&R, "I had never expected to come back, and I didn’t think it would happen, but I had hoped! I always thought, ‘Maybe they’d let me.’ And I’m really happy that the soap opera universe is so fluid and these kinds of things can happen." The actress marveled at how much had changed in her life since she first appeared in Genoa City. "I was a kid. I was 14 when I started and 15 when I left. I was there for my freshman and sophomore years of high school. That was half my lifetime ago! [Coming] back to Y&R in this new phase of my life, I’m so excited to really use the life experience that I’ve garnered in the last 15 years to create a really dynamic and interesting character. I’m not gonna lie: I think I might have manifested this role for myself, because I think I’ve matured and grown as a person and I feel ready to meet the challenge of stepping back into this world."

In 2023 on Bold and Beautiful, Deacon Sharpe (Sean Kanan) proposed to Sheila Carter (Kimberlin Brown). "It comes out of nowhere; it is spontaneous,” Kanan told Soap Opera Digest. “He gets caught up in the moment. He says he can’t live without her and wants to marry her. He has become extremely invested in her rehabilitation, believing anyone can be rehabilitated, especially since he has." Sheila was caught off-guard, given that Deacon had previously wanted to keep their romance under wraps. Kanan explained, "Deacon is at the point where he can’t imagine living his life without her. They get each other. They have always been the misfits and the outcasts, and they don’t have to pretend when they are with each other. There is a chemistry there and an understanding and an acceptance; they each knew the worst about each other and given that, there is an honesty and a transparency.”