Exclusive: Young & Restless’ Courtney Hope Defends Sally, Admitting, ‘I Know It Looks Bad, But… ’

From the moment viewers first met Sally Spectra 2.0 — grand niece of the legendary Bold & Beautiful character — portrayer Courtney Hope has seen the fashionista put through the proverbial wringer. Heck, things got so bad for Sally that she eventually packed up her bags and headed for The Young and the Restless‘ Genoa City. No matter where the character has resided, one thing has remained true.

“She’s a survivor,” declares Hope. “She’s a take-no-prisoners kind of gal, and she’s determined to do whatever it takes to succeed.”

That said, it does seem as if a lot of Sally’s success has come about as a result of… well, others providing a helping hand. In particular, men. So we couldn’t help but ask if Hope would like to see Sally become more of a self-starter.

“I feel that 100 percent,” she admits. “Sally has the smarts, and she has the wherewithal to stand on her own. Her great-aunt, the original Sally, had most of her successes on her own, and obviously I believe that her niece wants that, too!”

One thing Sally most definitely isn’t, appearances aside, is a gold digger. Sure, men tend to throw money in her general direction, but as Hope points out, “She fights it! She tries to tell them no, but they’re pretty insistent. And her heart is always in the right place, which is important.”

This week saw Sally telling Nick that, despite his hefty investment in her design firm, she’d decided to accept a job offer from his daughter, Summer, to work at Marchetti. And of course, when she promised to pay back every cent of the money he’d invested, Nick waved the notion off the way one would a pesky fly.

“I know it looks bad,” Hope says with a laugh, “but it’s not her fault that everyone she knows is rich! I remember when Spectra Fashions was about to be shut down, and Thomas stepped up and just wrote a check in front of her. When we finished taping the scenes, we were laughing about it. But that’s the way it always seems to be around her!”

The opportunities presented to her are not, Hope insists, taken lightly. “She wants to succeed so badly, and not just from an ego point of view. It comes from deep in her heart and soul. She never takes the generosity shown her for granted. I’ve always played it that she feels the weight of the Spectra legacy on her shoulders, and she wants to prove worthy of it.”