The Bold and the Beautiful has found its new Dr. Taylor Hayes.
Soap vet Rebecca Budig is debuting today as the psychiatrist on the CBS sudser. She replaces Krista Allen, who was written off the show in October of 2023 after taking over for Hunter Tylo in 2021.
“I love therapy — I’ve gone to years of therapy — which is a little different from psychiatry, obviously,” she tells People, which first broke the news. “I’ve been around enough mental health care professionals … just to get a sense of what they’re like.”
“Before this job came up, I thought about going back to school and studying psychology, because it actually fascinates me,” she continued. “It’s ironic that I got this part, given that that’s what I was going to try and do in the fall, anyway.”
Budig’s previous credits include stints on General Hospital, All My Children and Guiding Light.
In December of 2023, Deadline broke the news that Allen was leaving the soap. She was told that her contract wouldn’t be renewed; she hadn’t appeared in an episode since Nov. 8. Allen’s work on the soap did not go unnoticed, however; she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in her final year.
“The craziest thing is right before I got dropped, I did the cast photo shoot, and then the next week they called and said, ‘we’re not going to keep your third year and thank you very much, you were wonderful and thank you, goodbye,” Allen told Deadline at the time. “And I was like, what?”