Eva LaRue’s Final Episode Stuns Fans — The Real Reason She’s Leaving General Hospital!
As predicted, Eva LaRue is out as Natalia Rogers-Ramirez on General Hospital. The actress made her debut back in late February of 2024 as the judgmental and homophobic mother to her daughter, Blaze (formerly played by Jacqueline Grace Lopez) who was at that time in a relationship with Kristina (Kate Mansi).
LaRue’s character was vilified from the start at rightfully so, and while GH tried to figure a potential way to put her in an on-screen pairing with Maurice Benard (Sonny Corinthos), the writing was on the wall for awhile that she was going to be exiting the series.
In an interview with Soap Opera Digest, who confirmed LaRue’s exit, Eva expressed when she felt her time with the soap was drawing near, “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 (Jenz 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.”
As Eva shared, the fans weren’t buying the relationship between her and Sonny: “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.’”
In a statement on her departure, Frank Valentini (executive producer, GH) said, “Eva’s been a dear friend for years and I am so pleased we found an opportunity to work together! What originally was meant as a guest star arc turned into a longer and more satisfying arc, in thanks to Eva’s terrific work and chemistry with our cast. I was thrilled Eva was available to us in this extended role. I wish her all the best in her upcoming projects.”
On June 30th episode of GH, Natalia, when realizing she had no way out of her situation and Sonny wasn’t coming with her to Belize, ingested a dangerous mix of pills and alcohol in a state of despair. Will anyone find her in time? Look for LaRue’s final airdate this week on General Hospital.Daytime fans first knew Eva from her work as All My Children’s Maria Santos, a role she played from 1993-98; 2002-05 and again in appearances in 2010 and 2011. One of the things LaRue noted in her exit interview was she was glad her initial short- term run got extended, which enabled her to share scenes and hang out with several of her former AMC co-stars including: Michael E. Knight, Cameron Mathison, and Finola Hughes.
