Young & Restless’ Michelle Stafford Speaks Out to ‘Kill This Weird Narrative That Seems to Be Catching Fire’

Two days after winning her third Daytime Emmy, Michelle Stafford took to Instagram to set the record straight. “[I] need to kill this weird narrative that seems to be catching fire,” said the Young & Restless leading lady, “regarding the thing that I said to [executive producer/headwriter] Josh Griffith on stage: ‘Thank you for letting me cry in your office.’

“I usually wouldn’t give a [bleep],” she continued. “But I think actually sharing the story with you might be helpful to anyone who is experiencing grief. I lost a parent recently. It was devastating. But you must carry on with life. You go to work. You take care of your kids… And life does in fact move on.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean that one’s heart isn’t still healing as best it can. “About 10 days or so after his death, I had already had a meeting planned with Josh about some questions I had in my story. We were discussing a couple things, and every time I talked about my character’s relationship with her children and aspects of how it would play out… this surge of emotion came over me,” Stafford said. “Have you ever been there? After a loss, you move on and you’re fine, but then maybe you’re talking to, I don’t know, a co-worker or you see something at the market and something triggers some memory and you fall apart? The more you try to stop it the worse it gets.

“Oh man, it’s horrible,” she added. “That’s what happened. I found myself weeping in Josh’s office. Like an idiot. Something about talking about Phyllis’ relationship with her kids just did it. I was so embarrassed. I apologized profusely. He did the most human thing. I won’t get into what he said and did, but it was quite human.”

The fact that Stafford and Griffith were on the job took a backseat to the fact that they are both people, one of whom was in mourning. “Yes, it’s a workplace, our set. For sure. We’ve all been working together for a long time. It’s a professional environment, but we all really care about each other,” the actress noted. “Sometimes that’s hard for people to understand if they don’t have that kind of work life. Maybe folks out there who are trying to spread a rumor that I ‘cry to get a storyline’… have a bad work situation. Or a boss who doesn’t even care to listen to them.

“I don’t know,” she concluded. “All I know is that I’m very honored to work with people I also care about and who I believe care about me. What a gift. What I said on stage was a spontaneous comment to my boss who did something very kind for me. Very human for me. My wish for others is that one day they actually experience a working environment that’s similar.”