14 DAY TRIAL // There’s been a lot of drama and speculation regarding Michael Muhney’s abrupt exit from “The Young and the Restless,” and soap opera veteran Eric Braeden is looking to set the record straight in a new interview. As he sees it, Muhney has no one to blame but himself for being fired.
Since Muhney announced last month that he’d been fired, one rumor has been getting the most media attention: that he had harassed and groped co-star Hunter King and that she had complained to CBS brass and the producers about it.
She, supported by Braeden, demanded that Muhney be fired. Admittedly, Braeden had his own reasons for backing King up because he was jealous and afraid that Muhney was stealing his thunder, while also making him look bad in front of the cast and crew during their scenes together, by insisting they stick to the script, which Braeden often steers away from to improvise.
Only that last part is true, Braeden says in a new interview with Radar Online: he likes to ad lib because he knows his character, the legendary Victor Newman, by heart and knows what would go better for a certain scene.
Everything else, the actor continues, is a lie. In fact, he goes on to say, it was Muhney who led a very active “campaign” against him, trying to get him axed from the time-enduring show. In other words, Braeden is totally throwing Muhney under the bus here.
“I was prompted to get into ‘fisticuffs’ with him because he wanted me off the show, if you want to know the truth. That is about as far as I will go. That is it. It was a campaign to get me off the show. It was Muhney who wanted to get me off the show and he expressed that to various people,” he says, recalling a shouting match he got into with the younger actor.
Braeden does admit that things were usually tense between them, but he admits that Muhney is an exceptional actor. If only he knew how to keep his mouth shut…
“He wanted to be head honcho. In his words, I was the old lion and he was the young lion. He wanted to push aside the old lion. That was in his words to me, at the very end. I welcomed that guy, as I said. (I told him), ‘You are very good at what you do, keep your nose clean and stay out of everyone else’s business and just do your job’,” Braeden says.
“He has no one else to blame but himself and he said as much when he left… to several people and I respect that he did that. He apologized for his ambition and his desire to become the guy, the young lion, pushing away the old lion. He is a very good actor and should keep his mouth shut. I don’t need to listen to the drivel that comes out of that person’s mouth,” he continues.
He says that Muhney apologized to him several times for everything he did and said during his years on the show, but it seems clear that he can’t forgive him for even thinking he could go up against him, be in terms of skills or popularity or importance on the show. Muhney fans are of an entirely different opinion.