‘General Hospital’ Star Eva LaRue Exits the Role of Natalia

Fans of “General Hospital” have spent the last week or so anticipating the demise of Natalia Ramirez, played by Eva LaRue. She got a DWI, and it wasn’t her first one, so ADA Turner had her over a barrel. If she handed over everything she had on Sonny Corinthos, then it would be an even trade; otherwise, Natalia was looking at years in the clink. She went to Sonny and told him everything, and he agreed to relocate her to Belize. All she had to do was trust him.

Instead, Natalia flipped out once she realized that Sonny wouldn’t be joining her in Belize, and the last time that we saw her, she was mixing pills and booze until she passed out. Now, Soap Opera Digest is confirming that Eva LaRue has wrapped up her run on the sudser.

Eva LaRue Wraps Up Her Role This Week

ABC

The actress, who first made her debut on “General Hospital” on February 26, 2024, will air for the final time this week. She shared her thoughts on the show, saying, “I was originally only supposed to be on the show for a couple of months, and it ended up being a much longer run, which was great — and really fun because there are so many ‘All My Children’ actors there and so it felt like home.”

LaRue says that she knew her days were numbered. “I started to feel it in January. They tried to rehabilitate my character, and then all of a sudden, I have these scenes in January where, because Natalia had lied about her ex-husband [Sidwell] and broken his trust, Sonny was like, ‘We can’t be friends anymore.’ And I thought, ‘Uh-oh, there we go,’ because that [relationship with Sonny] was kind of my character’s only lifeline.”

Natalia Could Never Share a Love Story With Sonny

It seemed for a moment like the GH writers wanted to put Natalia and Sonny together as more than friends, but Eva knew that was never going to work. “People just weren’t buying it, because they just hated my character so much. I was so vilified that no matter what [the writers] did, it just wasn’t a solid enough rehabilitation that they were gonna buy me with Sonny. And so when they finally let that idea go, I realized, ‘Okay, I’m probably not much longer for this world.’ ”

On her last day of filming, “Frank [Valentini] called me upstairs and we had a really good exit chat. It was really fun working for Frank,” LaRue shares. “He was lovely and we’ve been friends for a zillion years, going back to the New York days. And he and John [Callahan, ex-Edmund, AMC, her late ex-husband] were good friends.”

Eva LaRue Has Nothing But Praise for Her GH Co-Stars

The actress absolutely loved sharing scenes with Maurice Benard, saying, “What a rock star! That was a blast. I was so glad they put me with Maurice. That was really fun.”

Then there was Carlo Rota, whose Jenz Sidwell ended up being Natalia’s ex-husband. “He’s so great. I actually had hope for a minute there that even if it didn’t work out with Sonny, that they were going to somehow pair me and Carlo up to be villains together. I was like, ‘Maye they’ll just double down on the villain/villainess thing and have us be in cahoots!’ I thought that could be super-interesting. I thought, ‘Oh, this could be super-good because our stuff is so fiery and so fun. And it was fun having a son for a minute there, too, in the form of Adrian Anchondo (Marco).”

In the end, Eva loved her time as Natalia. “I had a blast at General Hospital. I loved being there, and I had a lot of really great scenes, and I loved everybody that I got to work with. It was just an awesome experience, and I was really glad that I got to stay longer than I was supposed to.”

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