Michael Bruno, who manages several daytime soap stars past and present, including Amelia Heinle, who portrays Victoria Newman on “The Young and the Restless,” appeared on the Thursday, May 29 edition of the Lilly Melgar (“General Hospital,” “The Bay”) and Martha Madison (“Days of our Lives,” “The Bay”) hosted radio show “Soap Box with Lilly and Martha” to discuss several soap related topics. One of which was the recent news of David Tom being let go from “Y&R” as Billy Abbott and being replaced by daytime newcomer Burgess Jenkins.
When asked by Madison if he was surprised that Tom was surprised about being let go, the well known manager commented that there was chatter behind the scenes among several individuals at “Y&R” before Tom even learned his role was being recast. This in spite of the fact that the actor recently stated in an upcoming CBS Soaps In Depth interview, “As far as I knew, nobody knew about this. Not even the cast.”
Bruno noted, “There’s a lot of stuff behind the scenes which goes on that you’d actually be surprised that people don’t know.” He added, “You kind of are like, ‘This is happening, everyone else knows,’ and here’s an example of someone where I knew this was happening, I don’t represent him, and this is a person who’s going to work everyday… and talk about out of line, you kind of go, ‘Shouldn’t he be the first one to know before everyone else knows?’ And this is not the first time.”
When Madison referred to Twitter as being a source of chatter of late when it comes to matters such as these, Bruno says, “I just think there’s protocol. I’ve found it’s in very bad taste that one person knew before him yet alone 17. They try to hide it sometimes with the breakdowns, but everybody in the know knew that it was Michael Muhney [ex-Adam Newman] and Billy Miller [ex-Billy Abbott] the last time in November, but apparently the same thing [happened then where] Michael had no idea.”
For more from Bruno and his appearance on the Soap Box, which included an appearance by Mary Beth Evans (“DAYS,” “GH”), an actress he also represents, make sure to watch the full episode by clicking here.