It was tragic circumstances that brought together newlywed playboy Ridge Forrester (then Ronn Moss) and Dr. Taylor Hayes (then Hunter Tylo) in 1990: She was his doomed bride Caroline Spencer’s oncologist. As you can see, though, the widower soon found a way to ease the pain of his loss.
Though Ridge was head over heels in love with Brooke Logan, he made a valiant attempt to stop schtupping her after she married his father, Eric, by redirecting his libido toward Taylor and enticing her down the aisle with some buried treasure and a marriage proposal in St. Thomas.
After deflowering fellow psychiatrist James Warwick for fear that he’d die a virgin, Taylor conveniently “perished” in a plane crash. Translation: While Ridge Road Runner’d back to Brooke, his “late” wife made the most of her amnesia by marrying Prince Omar Rashid of Morocco.
Ridge and Brooke were happily fulfilling their “destiny” as a couple when he got an eyeful of her locking lips with Grant Chambers. Rather than discuss the matter — never Ridge’s strong suit, that! — he re-popped the question to former spouse Taylor at a Forrester Creations fashion show.
Despite Ridge’s habit of ping-ponging between Taylor and Brooke, he managed to stay put in his Doc’s bed long enough for them to start a family, which came to include son Thomas and daughters Steffy and Phoebe, the rare set of twins that was only occasionally identical.
When designing woman Morgan DeWitt came to L.A., Taylor was quick to befriend Ridge’s old flame — and even quicker to regret it. The schemer conned her former lover into knocking her up to replace the child that Mommie Dearest Stephanie Forrester had strong-armed her into aborting.
During Sheila Carter’s early-2000s reign of terror, she took aim at both Brooke and Taylor. The former survived, and the latter? Well, she survived, too, it turned out. She’d just been spirited away by Omar, who was only too happy to let Ridge believe that she was really dead this time.
Now and then, Ridge and Taylor invited people besides Brooke into their hot mess of a relationship. For instance, it once looked like Taylor might turn up the heat with fireman Hector Ramirez. She also ripped a page from Brooke’s little black book by getting involved with Ridge’s brothers and father.
As for Ridge, he went so far as to get engaged to Young & Restless perfumer Ashley Abbott. (The man has spent half of his life on one knee!) But the less said, the better about his flirtation with Brooke’s daughter Bridget, who he once thought was his daughter and sister! (She was neither.)
Sometimes Brooke made it all too easy for Taylor to paint herself as the more sensible option for Ridge. Whereas Brooke had a baby with one of her daughters’ significant others and “accidentally” had wall sex with another, Taylor would never do that sort of thing. On second thought…
It became a lot harder for Taylor to slut-shame Brooke after it was revealed that she herself had embarked on a steamy affair with her rival’s son… who just happened to be Phoebe’s former boyfriend! The girl was so freaked that she wound up in a car wreck that claimed her life. (Unless… Omar?)
If Phoebe’s death hadn’t killed Ridge’s renewed relationship with Brooke, his drug-addled tryst with Taylor certainly would have, especially since back then, the blonde was more prone to act on impulse. In a huff over her husband’s betrayal, she gave him the heave-ho. Emphasis on the “ho.”
Despite appearances to the contrary, rather than sleep or even catnap on his decision to remarry Taylor as fast as humanly possible, Ridge went full-steam-ahead with wedding plans. How could he not? He had been single for whole minutes.
As predictable as the sunrise, Brooke came to regret showing the door to her favorite flip-flopper. Steffy and Thomas nearly kept their sometime stepmonster from interrupting their parents’ remarriage ceremony, but Brooke still showed up — on horseback, no less.
Time and time again, Ridge and Taylor climbed aboard the marry-go-round. They had to know the way that the ride would end. Yet he couldn’t seem to pass a Kay’s without adding a new ring to his collection and slipping it on the finger of one or the other of his on-again/off-again wives.
Yup, if it was a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or really any day that ended in “day,” chances were good that Taylor’s hand was sporting a new rock as a sign of Ridge’s fidelity and commitm… No. We can’t. We just can’t type that with a straight face.
See the looks that Ridge is getting here from Thomas (then Drew Tyler Bell), Steffy and Taylor? That’s generally the level of subtlety they use when encouraging him to “come home” to the Forresters. (Even though technically, he’s a Marone. But that’s another story!)
Don’t be fooled by this shot. It may appear that being the rope in Taylor and Brooke’s tug of war is giving Ridge the mother of all migraines, but let’s be real: Dude loves it. More likely he’s covering his face to keep his wives from seeing the smile that says, “OMG! They’re still at it!”
Here, Taylor demonstrates the only amount of distance that she can safely leave between herself and Ridge if she wants to have any hope of keeping Brooke from displacing her from his arms. In other words, no distance at all.
Even when Taylor has covered Ridge’s ears to keep him from hearing, never mind heeding, the call of his and Brooke’s much-ballyhooed destiny, he’s still been drawn back to his ex. Perhaps it’s just the challenge of trying to put wrinkles in sheets made from BeLieF. Or perhaps it’s just that his motto has always been…
When people talk about Ridge and Taylor’s wedding album these days, they aren’t referring to pictures from any one particular ceremony, they’re describing a scrapbook of all of their umpteen nuptials. Volume 2 should be out any time now.
By 2014, it felt like there was something different about Ridge and Taylor. In part, it was the fact that by then he was being played by Thorsten Kaye. In (another?) part, it was the fact that he was involved with Brooke’s kid sister, Katie, and Taylor had hooked up with Eric.
Who are we kidding? It didn’t matter how many other people Ridge and Taylor slept with or got hitched to. His hold on her remained as powerful as ever. So it was hardly a stunner when she declared a few years later that she still loved him. And in response, he declared… Oh. Oh dear. He said, basically, “That’s nice.” Ouch.
When Taylor returned to L.A. in 2021 with Krista Allen taking over the role, Steffy and Thomas (now Matthew Atkinson) got their hopes way up that Mommy and Daddy would reunite. And although Pop was once again married to Brooke, the kids insisted at least three times an episode that Taylor was his endgame.
Events — and loco-en-la-cabeza Sheila — seemed to conspire to remind Ridge that Taylor was as snuggly as a drowsy kitten. After the madwoman attempted to murder Steffy and seemingly did kill her own son, Steffy’s husband Finn Finnegan, the bond between the exes was strengthened. By which we mean…
When it was revealed that Finn was only “dead” in the way that Taylor often had been, she and Ridge were so happy that they puckered up and shared a smooch. This only encouraged Steffy and Thomas to nag them about reuniting six times an episode instead of merely three.
After Thomas made it look sound like Brooke had called Child Protective Services on him, Ridge, rather than confront his wife or disclose why he was grumpypants, flew off to Aspen, where he informed Taylor that they were on again. Against her better judgment, she was like, “Whee!”
The ink was barely on, much less dry on, Ridge and Brooke’s annulment papers when he did the most predictably Ridge thing that he could do and proposed to Taylor for the zillionth time. “Girl, no!” we screamed at our TVs. And yet, “Honey, yes!” was the answer that she once again gave.
“Should anyone present know of any reason that this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony… ” Er, yeah. You can tell from a glance that Steffy did indeed know of a reason that her parents shouldn’t remarry in 2022. And since Mom wasn’t about to tell Dad that he’d only dumped Brooke because of Thomas’ machinations, Steffy revealed the truth herself. She wanted her folks to reunite, sure, but in a romantic, sensible way… like if a pine cone fell on Ridge’s head and knocked some sense into him.
No, Ridge. Taylor and Brooke weren’t considering becoming sister wives. While he was off staring at an FBI monitor helping bust Sheila Carter, the former rivals were becoming besties who didn’t need no stinkin’ man, especially not him.
Advertisement
