Drucilla, Is That *Really* You? Time for Young & Restless Fans to Pop the Cork
Fans of The Young and the Restless may be coming up on a moment for which they’ve been waiting for more than 15 years. At the tail end of the October 5 episode (recapped in full here), we saw Mamie laughing on the phone with a coconspirator in her purchase of Victor’s Chancellor-Winters stock. The plan “went off without a hitch,” she said. “No one has a clue, but they’re all curious.”
Not us — we think we’ve figured out the identity of Mamie’s secret partner: her niece, the late, great Drucilla Winters, who fell off a cliff in 2007 never to be seen again… until now. (Fingers crossed.)
Victoria Rowell played the part from 1990-2007, and she’s certainly whom viewers would want to see in the role. Whether she’d be rehired is another matter. In 2015, she filed a lawsuit against CBS and the soap’s producers that alleged racial discrimination and retaliation. (The suit was later dismissed.)
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Although that might make it seem like the bridge to Genoa City had been burned, Rowell told Soaps.com in 2020 that CBS and its parent company’s push for increased diversity had given her hope. “I am very encouraged that I may get a call again from Viacom/CBS,” she said. “I see opportunity happening. I hope this opportunity won’t be just a media moment; I hope that it will be sustainable in its systemic change, and I look forward to more calls from CBS.”
If Rowell isn’t resurrecting Dru, we suppose the powers that be could recast. But with whom? Actors that bring to the table as much fire as she does are few and far between. Maybe Debbi Morgan, the All My Children Emmy winner who was so poorly utilized as Harmony on Young & Restless? Or Guiding Light alum Nia Long? Crystal R. Fox, late of Tyler Perry’s The Haves and the Have Nots, would be amazing.
But she, or anyone trying to replace Rowell, would have an uphill battle ahead of them, considering how beloved she is in the role. (Remember how unfortunately it went when the show tried to recast Shemar Moore as Malcolm?) What do you think? Is it Dru with whom Mamie is gleefully plotting to reunite their fractured family — or someone else?