
What a week this has been for
The Young and the Restless fans. Before anyone had a chance to digest the news that Gina Tognoni had been cast as a younger Phyllis Summers, David Tom had been fired from his role as Billy Abbott. Three and a half months after Tom replaced Billy Miller, the role was recast again, with Burgess Jenkins.
Y&R wanted to take the character in a different direction. If you've watched soaps as long as many viewers have, you've heard that old chestnut time and again.
David Tom played Billy as a young adult from 1999-2002, winning a Daytime Emmy Award in 2000. He was very popular in the role and his departure was a blow to the show. Ryan Brown replaced Tom as Billy from 2002-2003 but never quite caught on. The character was brought back in 2006, played by Scott Seymour, but he was let go after 3 months. In 2008, Billy Miller landed the role and, as with many soap characters played by the same actor for several years, the writers began to incorporate Miller's personality into the character. By the time Miller's departure was announced in 2013, he had won two Daytime Emmys for his work and become a favorite among fans. The Billy Abbott that David Tom returned to was a drastically different character than the one he played so brilliantly before.