‘The Young and the Restless’: Kym Douglas Opens Up About “Touching” Tribute to Late Husband Jerry Douglas

Amid the celebrations of its 50th anniversary, The Young and the Restless is sweetly honoring the late Jerry Douglas — who iconically played beloved patriarch John Abbott on the long-running soap opera — with a special appearance from his wife, Kym Douglas.

The widow’s guest-starring role comes two years after Jerry passed away from a brief illness just days before his 89th birthday. The actor first joined Y&R in 1982 before his character was killed off in 2006. However, he continued to appear on the show in Jack’s (Peter Bergman) conscious until 2016.

Kym, who frequently appeared on The Ellen Degeneres Show with her wild beauty routines and starred in the Hallmark series Home & Family, opened up about the moment she was offered the role of Zelda, a woman who’s known the Abbott family for years.

“I was getting emails from folks at Y&R about how much they missed Jerry, and out of the blue, [the show’s publicist] Matt Kane reached out to me and said that Y&R was doing an episode honoring Jerry,” she recalled in an interview with TV Insider. “He said that there’s a character named Zelda and we all thought who better to play this than you? Would I be interested? I was there in five minutes!”

Kym, a breast cancer survivor, told the outlet that their son, Hunter, tagged along with her to the Y&R set — which she remembered as “one of the most beautiful days” of her life.

“Jerry’s photo as John is still all over the Abbott family home set and at Jabot Cosmetics,” she explained. “For Hunter to see his dad’s place of work and see him still there, his legacy, was just so touching. I have pictures of him sitting behind his dad’s desk.”

Reflecting on the impact Jerry’s character had on viewers, Kym praised John’s “moral compass” and noted that we don’t have “those kinds of role models” on TV anymore. She later referred to him as a “father figure” to fellow soap opera fans.

“John Abbott was in their living room for decades,” she said. “Professional athletes would come up to Jerry and say, ‘I didn’t have a role model, but you showed me how to be a dad to my kids.’ Viewers would say to him, ‘We learned how to be a father through you.'”

The Young and the Restless airs at 12:30 p.m. ET on CBS. You can watch Kym in today’s episode, which will be streaming on Paramount+.