Young & Restless’ Jordi Vilasuso: ‘Everybody’s Really Excited for Me to Be Back’

Who says nice guys finish last? Though The Young and the Restless killed off squeaky-clean Rey Rosales in 2022, there was no way in hell that that would be the last we’d see of his portrayer, soap-hopper Jordi Vilasuso. He’s about to replace another former Genoa City denizen (David Lago, who played Raul) on the digital soap The Bay.

“Everybody’s really excited for me to be back on a show,” the Emmy winner tells Soap Opera Digest. “It’s gonna feel good to be on a set again.”

Though Vilasuso is well-versed in daytime’s ups and downs, what with his having also appeared on Guiding Light, All My Children and Days of Our Lives, he was still caught off guard by his dismissal from Young & Restless. “I had just signed on for another three years, but in retrospect, I should have read the writing on the wall, because once you’re the only one of a [soap] family left, your days are numbered,” he says. “But it’s a gig, and you’ve got to take those blows and then move onward and upward.”

Vilasuso’s new role of Justin Ramos presents a welcome challenge. “I would describe him as an ambitious businessman, which people haven’t really seen me do,” he notes. “I’ve played a cop and doctors, and a guest appearance once as a sleazy businessman, but Justin is on the up and up. He’s a good guy who gets entangled with one of the richest families in town as well as involved with partners who are not as agreeable as he would want them to be.”