If you’ve read the latest spoilers for The Bold and the Beautiful, you know that Wednesday’s episode is going to be a doozy: Katie and Bill reveal to Ridge and Brooke the identity of Logan’s secret designer. “They’re angry with Eric, of course,” portrayer John McCook tells Soaps.com. “They freak out.”
But the tension between the group takes a backseat when, during the ensuing free-for-all, the Forrester family’s patriarch finds himself short of breath. McCook is as curious as many a fan is about why sketching gowns is so taxing. He admits that he’s wondered “how physically demanding can that be? But [the powers that be] pointed out that the emotional pressure was too much for Eric.”
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Is this a recurrence of the Soap-Opera Illness that almost sent the OG character to that big fashion show in the sky in 2023? The moment is fraught, yes, McCook allows, but “they’re not reaching back into the illness he had a few years ago. [The respiratory distress] is only a device to observe that something’s going on with him.”
Despite this scary setback for Eric, his portrayer has loved the way he responded to being put out to pasture by his son. “Eric was not pitiful but rather angry. He was much more active in his reaction than ‘Oh my goodness, they’ve forced me into retirement; it’s so sad.’ I’m glad we got to do that.”
To read the Emmy winner’s thoughts on his leading ladies over the years, take a scroll through the below photo gallery.