‘Hello, Young & Restless?’ As Kelly Monaco Exits General Hospital, Her Next Role May Include a Rematch Made in Heaven

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or really any kind of scientist at all to predict that Kelly Monaco will spend less time standing on the unemployment line than it takes to sit through a commercial break. If General Hospital goes through with its plan to kill her off as Sam McCall — over fans’ strenuous objections — the actress is sure to have her pick of roles. One, however, is so obvious that the contracts should already be getting drawn up.

Clearly, Monaco should join The Young and the Restless as a new love interest for Jason Thompson’s Billy Abbott. We already know that the former General Hospital co-stars have chemistry to burn, thanks to the storyline that found Sam falling for and getting engaged to Thompson’s Dr. Patrick Drake. And Billy is in dire need of a kick in the pants.

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As one fan put it on X, “I have really not been feeling… Billy… but with Kelly Monaco, I think that would click… I hope they snap her up quick.” Another viewer went so far as to suggest the character she could play: “Audra’s half sister!”

Seems to us like a no-brainer. On one hand, Young & Restless would add to its enviable cast an MVP from a rival soap. And on the other, it would be handed a golden opportunity to reboot Billy. We can imagine the scene now in which he meets Monaco’s character — Kylie, let’s call her — just after he’s been tossed out of Chancellor by Victor.

“If you’re just gonna cry in your beer,” the beautiful stranger tells Billy, “can I have it? I hate to see a cold one go to waste.”

“I’m not crying in my beer,” he protests, “I’m… ” He is caught off guard by the sight of Kylie. She’s the drop-dead kind of gorgeous. “I’m, um… I’m sulking at my beer.”

“Oh, good,” the newcomer cracks. “That’s way more dignified.” Kylie orders a beer for herself and tells Billy that yes, he can join her, and no, he didn’t have to ask. “If there’s one thing worse than drinking alone, it’s sulking alone. So what happened? Wait, wait, don’t tell me.”

Kylie looks Billy up and down. “Long face, fancy suit… I’m guessing… somebody stole your paper route.”

She’s making fun of him, but he can’t help but be charmed. There’s no meanness to her quips, only mischief. “How did you know? That’s exactly what happened,” he tells her, “and it was a really big paper route. I was really good at it, too.”

“Were you?” she asks casually.

“I… ” Billy starts to say. And then, staring at Kylie’s lovely face, he does something that he rarely has before speaking: He thinks. She notices the pause and has to ask what it’s all about. “I was going to just say yes, I was really good at my… well, my paper route. But then I realized how often I say that… and how often other people don’t. And it got me wondering whether I wasn’t the hotshot that I thought I was.”

“Bartender, we’re gonna need another round,” Kylie calls out. “Probably several.” She turns back to Billy and asks what made him so sure he was all that and a bag of chips.

“I… I’ll be damned. I don’t know,” he admits. “It never occurred to me that I wasn’t. That there was even the possibility in my mind that I could not be.”

“Wow,” Kylie laughs. “You sound delightful.”

“I sound like an ass,” he acknowledges.

“Maybe you are one,” she jokes. 

Billy takes her seriously though and agrees that maybe he is. Or he has been. He doesn’t need to be, though. Hell, there’s no reason in the world for him to be such an entitled, self-righteous, arrogant jerk. “Starting here, starting now, Smug, Intolerable Me is dead and buried,” he declares. “In his place stands—”

“Sits,” Kylie interrupts.

“What?”

“You’re sitting,” she points out. He laughs it off as a technicality and continues. “In place of the old me sits a kinder, gentler, humbler me.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Kylie says, clinking mugs with Billy.

“So will I,” he replies, “since you’re buying.”

“I mean, you could buy a round, too,” Kylie notes. “I did just give you best psychiatric help you can get this side of Lucy in a Peanuts cartoon.”

“True,” he admits. “But you forget, I’m unemployed.”

Neither Billy nor Kylie know it at that moment, but a new supercouple has just been born, one that will delight not only Young & Restless fans but General Hospital ones, too. Check out the below photo gallery that revisits highlights of Monaco’s whole career.