If you haven’t heard, Claire Grace (Hayley Erin) is the newest resident on The Young and the Restless. Now, for longtime viewers of the soap, the actress should be familiar as she once portrayed Abby Newman, a role now played by Melissa Ordway.
However, this new character Claire arrives in town as someone hoping to work at Newman Media as an assistant. Turning on the charm and winning over Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott), she manages to land the job in the episode airing on October 2. Although her sweet and pleasant demeanor clearly has the Newman matriarch fooled, we’re a bit more skeptical.
During her job interview with Audra (Zuleyka Silver) and Nikki, Claire makes a few statements that cause us to raise an eyebrow. For starters, she claims that she has a "passion for music" and is minoring in it in some capacity while in school.
Claire also shares that she wants to leave her current residence in Chicago to get away from the chaos of the "big city life," and actually "had a college friend who was from Genoa City," and she spent a few summers in town with this pal. When Nikki asks her the name of the friend, Claire says Sophia Carmichael. Nikki immediately recognizes the Carmichael name, knowing the patriarch and matriarch of the family, but confesses to never meeting their daughter.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Claire mentions that her parents were killed in a car accident when she was young, and that she was raised by her great-aunt who lives in Oregon.
The last bit of noteworthy information from Claire’s convo with the Newman Media execs is what she brings up about McCall Unlimited. She states she’s "excited to see how Tucker McCall’s (Trevor St. John) company fits into Newman Enterprises." Claire follows that up by turning to Audra and insinuating that the Newman Media COO must have a lot of ideas on the subject considering she used to work with Tucker. (Audra didn’t seem to care for the remark)
With all of that said, is it possible that there is more to Claire’s backstory than she’s leading on? We’re almost certain there is, and we think Tucker and Audra are involved in some capacity.
As The Young and the Restless fans know, Tucker and Audra once covered up a scandal at McCall Unlimited when he was in control of the company. Long story short, a public relations employee at the company decided to cover up the fact that a musician under the McCall music label was having inappropriate sexual contact with underage girls.
While neither Tucker nor Audra knew that the PR employee went to such lengths to protect the artist at the time of the incidents, when they found out what happened, the two business colleagues attempted to bury every aspect of the scandal. Unfortunately, Adam (Mark Grossman) found emails between Tucker and Audra discussing their actions to ensure this story never got out.
So could Claire be one of the survivors of the predatory musician? Furthermore, could she be in Genoa City plotting revenge on Tucker, and even possibly Audra?
Considering Claire has a music background, it’s not a farfetched idea to imagine her being around McCall’s music business when this musician was preying on young girls. Plus, the fact she brought up Tucker by name rather than McCall Unlimited makes us feel she has more of an interest in the man rather than the company. Not to mention, she was sure to bring up Audra’s connection to Tucker, as if Claire has a hunch that Audra knows what skeletons are in Tucker’s closet.
One thing is for certain, we’ll be paying close attention to Newman Media’s new assistant.
New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus.
