It's sort of a well-known pseudo fact: when an actor or actress who has left their show ends up with a Daytime Emmy nomination -- they more often than not seem to take home an Emmy. Again, it's necessarily a rule -- but that was the case with both of this year's Younger winners.
Kyler Pettis (Theo Carver) made his final appearances on Days of our Lives in early January 2018. With DAYS' frenzied production schedule, Pettis taped those scenes in mid-to-late 2017 -- which is now nearly two years ago.
Pettis said he was genuinely shocked to hear his name announced as the winner and still hasn't processed where he'll keep his Emmy.
"I have a picture of my cat, and I'm thinking right next to that," the actor said with a smile.
This year's Outstanding Younger Actor category was guaranteed to produce a first-time winner. Four of the five nominees were first-time nominees. Only Pettis' former costar Lucas Adams had received a previous nomination.
Pettis' win gives Days of our Lives seven wins in the Younger Actor category, putting it into a first-place tie with the long-running soap Guiding Light. Between 2012 and 2019, DAYS has won five times.
While Kyler Pettis could, in theory, reprise his DAYS role at any time (his character is out of the country, receiving medical treatment), that would be a little harder for Hayley Erin. The actress' character was killed by a deranged serial killer. And Erin has moved on to the primetime series Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists.
Of course, on the soaps, you can never say never.
Winning a Daytime Emmy is a thrill of its own, but for Erin, her first Emmy win came with a surprise added bonus.
"Honestly, I just couldn't believe I was accepting an award from Alex Trebek," the actress shared. "He's my life, my lifetime hero, so it was such an honor. I watch Jeopardy! every day."
Erin keeps in contact with her former General Hospital stars, but she did make an admission: she hasn't been able to watch the show since her character was killed.
"I haven't watched the show since Maura West was grieving over Kiki's body because it just got to be too much for me," she said. "I couldn't handle it."
While Erin's character did meet with an untimely demise, only some of that material factored into her Emmy reel. The bulk of the content was from a storyline that garnered national attention: sexual harassment. Erin's Kiki was sexually harassed by a superior, who threatened to destroy her career if she revealed what he'd done.
Erin's win gives General Hospital nine wins in the Younger Actress category, which breaks the tie the show had with The Young and the Restless.
