General Hospital Vet Reveals the Heartbreaking Reason She Left Her Frontburner Role

Being cast by General Hospital as Scotty Baldwin’s surprise daughter Karen Wexler in 1992 was a big break for Cari Shayne. Unfortunately, it led to an altogether different kind of break.

How Is This Going to Work?
Guesting on former leading man Maurice Benard’s State of Mind vlog, the actress recalled that when the show hooked up Sonny and Karen, she wasn’t sure about it. The future godfather of Port Charles had, after all, gotten the high-school girl to strip at his club… and he’d gotten her hooked on pills… and did we mention that she was a teenager? ’Cause she was.

“But the way that you played him was so human,” Shayne told her scene partner. “And it was so great that you did that because it also helped my character. I was like, ‘People are going to think, ‘Why is she hanging out with this dude?’ But you could see why. You were my father figure that I didn’t have.”

Watch the two of them in action below.

The Breaking Point
Benard’s mental-health struggles at that time are well-documented. But back then, Shayne wasn’t super aware of them. “I don’t think I remembered much about that time because I was also going through a breakdown, and I didn’t know it,” she admitted. “The character had gotten to me so much. It really affected me.

“I was so much a Method actor, too,” she added. “[The storyline] was all so heavy and dark and awful, and to get to that place, I had to live there all the time… I think that’s why I left, because I couldn’t live that way.”