Early last month, it was announced that Josh Griffith would relinquish his title as showrunner/executive producer on “The Young and the Restless,” with Sally McDonald, who was upped to co-executive producer in 2025, becoming the soap opera’s sole executive producer, as Griffith was said to have wanted to focus more on his writing duties. Weeks later, however, Griffith is now also stepping down as the show’s head writer.
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According to TV Insider, which first reported the news, the cast and crew were informed of the behind-the-scenes change early Friday, though it’s understood that Griffith will continue in the role as head writer until a successor can be named. Meanwhile, the long-running series is on a production hiatus until Monday, July 6, in honor of the upcoming Independence Day holiday.
Before taking over as the show’s head writer in 2019, following the departure of then-executive producer/head writer Mal Young, Griffith had a long history with the soap opera, dating back to 2006, when he served as a creative consultant and breakdown writer. Later that year, he took the reins as co-executive producer, a position he held until December 2007.
During the infamous writer’s strike in 2007 and into early 2008, Griffith served as the show’s head writer, officially going fi-core according to the Writers Guild. He later returned to the series as head writer in 2012, remaining in the position until 2013.
By August 2018, Griffith had once again returned to the show, this time as a supervising producer, and held the position until Mal Young’s aforementioned departure. From that point on, Griffith became the show’s head writer and co-executive producer, working alongside executive producer Anthony Morina.
Morina departed the soap in 2023, and Griffith became the show’s sole executive producer while retaining his position as head writer. That same year, the show won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing Team for a Daytime Drama Series. He also took home the award in the same category in 2021, 2019 (alongside Mal Young) and 2014 (alongside Shelly Altman and Jean Passanante).
Beginning his daytime career in 1988 as a writer on “Santa Barbara,” Griffith won an Emmy in 1989 for Outstanding Writing Team for a Daytime Drama Series when the show took home the award, and later a Writers Guild Award in 1990 for his work on the former NBC daytime drama series. The series took its second consecutive Emmy win in 1990 in the same category. By 1991, Griffith joined “One Life to Live” as an associate head writer, then was promoted to co-head writer in 1992, working alongside the late Michael Malone. Under their tenure, the show won its first-ever Emmy Award for Outstanding Daytime Drama Series Writing Team in 1994, nearly 30 years after the soap opera premiered on ABC.
Griffith left the “show”One Life to Live” in 1995, but by 1997, had co-created a new soap opera for NBC with Robert Guza Jr. called “Sunset Beach,” which was produced by the legendary Aaron Spelling and his Spelling Television shingle. In 2003, Griffith returned to “One Life to Live” alongside Malone, with ABC running a promotional campaign touting the return of writers fans loved, including Guza at “General Hospital” and Megan McTavish at “All My Children.”
Beginning in 2005, Griffith worked as a writer at “As The World Turns” and later “General Hospital.” In 2012, he led the writing team for the Nick at Nite teen-focused soap opera “Hollywood Heights,” which led to his return to “The Young and the Restless” the same year. Though he exited in 2013, Griffith would later serve as head writer and co-head writer at “Days of our Lives” from 2015-2016, before again returning to the world of Genoa City in 2018.
In its reporting, Deadline noted that while Griffith remains in the position for now, he is “expected to leave in the near future.”
