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Bringing love in the afternoon to millions of viewers around the world can be both tireless and thrilling. Soap operas are out here showcasing the dramatic ups and downs of star-crossed relationships, unexpected hookups, and supercouple-worthy weddings watched by 30 million viewers (looking at you, Luke and Laura!).
The workload is made a lot more exciting for a few lucky couples in daytime. Whether it's bold and beautiful relationships, young and restless flings, or decades of marriage for all the days of their lives, some soap stars whose love blossomed on-screen also experienced the same chemistry off-screen.
Kirsten Storms And Brandon Barash
Kirsten Storms and Brandon Barash have both proved themselves as soap opera vets, both appearing on more than one daytime drama throughout their careers. However, most may know them for portraying the bubbly but devious Maxie Jones and villainous music man Johnny Zacchara on General Hospital.
While Maxie and Johnny shared a short-live hookup on-screen, Storms and Barash dated for several years in real life, marrying in 2013 and having a daughter in 2014. Though the couple has since divorced and currently star on different soaps, the two remain friends and loving parents to their daughter.
Alison Sweeney And Bryan Dattilo
Teenage disaster couple Sami Brady and Lucas Horton started out with a fake relationship on Days of Our Lives in the early 90s. The two have since been married and divorced, had two children, and dated on and off on several occasions to this day until Sweeney's recent move to Hallmark Channel.
While it's seemingly always been kept hush-hush, rumor has it Sami's and Lucas' portrayers dated back in the day, and Alison Sweeney revealed in her 2004 memoir that Dattilo was her high school prom date, where the two experienced their first-ever fan encounter together.
Kelly Ripa And Mark Consuelos
Hayley Vaughan and Mateo Santos were a 90's All My Children supercouple, whose character screentest launched the real-life romance of their portrayers Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. Even after Hayley and Mateo left Pine Valley in the early 2000s, Ripa and Consuelos were already years into their marriage.
Decades of marriage and three children later, the husband-and-wife duo is going back to where it all began by joining the long list of reboots with their upcoming All My Children primetime spin-off titled Pine Valley, a decade after the original show's cancellation by ABC.
Rebecca Herbst And Michael Saucedo
While most General Hospital fans would argue that Elizabeth Webber belongs with Lucky, she's also dated a handful of other notable characters, all except the one once played by the actress' real-life husband. While Rebecca Herbst and Michael Saucedo met on the set and shared numerous scenes together as friends, the two never actually dated onscreen.
It wasn't until Saucedo's one-episode return to the show in 2013 when Juan reveals to Elizabeth that he's now married to a "wonderful woman named Becky," nodding to the actor's real-life marriage to Elizabeth's portrayer.
Bryton James And Brytni Sarpy
After playing Devon Hamilton on CBS' Young and the Restless for over a decade, it wasn't until 2019 that Bryton James met his match on the show. Brytni Sarpy joined Y&R as Elena Dawson, where she and James' romance was evident on and off-screen.
While Devon and Elena have since broken up and started seeing other people, soap fans continue to speculate about James and Sarpy's relationship after the two seemingly stopped posting about one another on social media.
Chad Duell And Kristin Alderson
When you throw a Corinthos and a Manning together, there's bound to be trouble in the soap world. Kristin Alderson's beloved character Starr Manning soap-hopped from One Life To Live to General Hospital after OLTL's cancellation. The daughter of Todd Manning started dating the son of mobster Sonny Corinthos upon her arrival in Port Charles, but the romance wasn't only fictional.
Alderson began dating Michael's portrayer Chad Duell around the same time as their characters dated, until Alderson left and returned to the soap as a brand-new character, Kiki Jerome, who now dated Michael's brother and Alderson and Duell's relationship burnt out along with the character of Starr.
Arianne Zucker And Shawn Christian
These two Days of Our Lives favorites were each one-half of popular couples like Nicole and EJ and Daniel and Jennifer, but it wasn't until Nicole Walker and Daniel Jonas got together in 2012 that sparks started to fly between their portrayers Arianne Zucker and Shawn Christian.
Zucker was formerly married to another on-screen love interest, Kyle Lowder, with whom she shares a son, but she and Christian's relationship is still going strong after the announcement of their engagement in 2021.
Kassie DePaiva And James DePaiva
James DePaiva had three runs as Max Holden on One Life To Live, ranging from 12 years to four days, but it was his second stint as the former Break Bar owner where he met the love of his life.
While Max's relationship with Blair Cramer started out as an affair, the actor's real-life relationship turned into a long-lasting marriage and raising their son.
Kristina Wagner And Jack Wagner
While Luke and Laura were General Hospital's biggest supercouple, they were closely followed by fan-favorites like Duke and Anna, Scorpio and Holly, and Frisco and Felicia. The latter's romance was so popular that it inevitably created a real-life romance between actors Jack Wagner and Kristina Wagner.
The couple married in 1993, and despite a divorce less than a decade later, the two have since shared the screen as their GH characters, as well as on Hallmark Channel's When Calls The Heart.
Bill Hayes And Susan Seaforth Hayes
Not only did Days of Our Lives' Doug and Julie Williams meet and begin dating in the 1970s, but so did their portrayers. Bill and Susan Hayes married in 1974, two years before their characters were wed in Salem.
The couple is still together on and off-screen to this day and celebrated their love at the Daytime Emmy Awards in 2018 when they jointly accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award for their Days legacy.