Back in 2003, playboy Ridge Forrester (then Ronn Moss) and former stepmother Brooke Logan were in South America to tie the knot for the third time when the groom was kidnapped by merry murderess Sheila Carter, another former stepmother but one that he had no interest in marrying. One thing, as they always do, led to another, and Ridge was presumed to have died after taking a swan dive into a furnace.
Five minutes later, Brooke did the only sensible thing — for a soap character, anyway — and had grief sex with Ridge’s half brother, Nick Marone. Five minutes after that, Ridge was revealed to be alive and well and not even half-, much less all-the-way baked, and Brooke was, per the laws of daytime television, pregnant with a child of unknown origin.
As Brooke, Ridge and Nick eagerly awaited the results of one paternity test after another, busybody Sally Spectra, Nick’s mother Jackie Payne and Brooke’s babydaddy Deacon Sharpe — basically, half of Los Angeles! — took a turn altering the results.
Until it was finally determined that Brooke’s newborn was Ridge’s, not Nick’s, the sibling rivals and Brooke stayed close. Too close, if this picture is any indication. We can only hope that Ridge’s state of undress was a result of his misapprehension that Brooke would want to celebrate the news by making love and not because he was about to volunteer to breastfeed Ridge Jr.
Although Brooke had clearly taught RJ that only he could prevent forest beach fires — as well as that marshmallows are delicious — he and big sister Hope still set Mom’s house ablaze when they were accidentally left home alone. Since the incident occurred during one of Brooke’s countless splits from Ridge, he reacted by stepping up and taking a more active role in his son’s life suing for custody.
When Brooke’s plane went down over the South Pacific in 2011, Ridge did his damnedest to keep RJ (at this point Jack Horan) from finding out. But of course, Brooke was fine. Better than fine, in fact. For a brief, shining moment when she was high on boinkberries, she could really mean it when she said that…
Thankfully, despite being hot for one another, Brooke and stepson Thomas (then Adam Gregory) resisted the fruit-fueled urge to shag one another and instead imagined that they were at a tropical rave. Or… whatever this is. Something.
Eh, not quite. By the time that RJ returned from boarding school in 2016, a lot had changed — and we don’t just mean that Anthony Turpel was playing Ridge Jr. and Thorsten Kaye, Ridge Sr. Brooke, as reliably as the changing of the seasons, had become engaged to someone new.
RJ was all about reuniting his parents, but he couldn’t deny that there were some things that he liked about the idea of having a stepfather like Bill Spencer whose nickname started with the word “dollar.”
Because the workplace is for one thing and one thing only — romance! — RJ fell head over heels for the first Forrester Creations intern to return his gaze. As dictated by soap-opera odds, that intern just happened to come with a massive downside in the form of her…
Like the great aunt after whom she was named, Sally Spectra spent so much of her time in hot water, it was a wonder that pruning wasn’t a bigger issue. And when she was arrested for stealing Forrester Creations designs, not to mention using Coco as her accomplice, all RJ could do to support his girlfriend was pretend that she had succeeded in convincing everyone that she was a mannequin.
To impress Coco, RJ took her for a spin in Dad’s bitchin’ Camaro. Unfortunately, the joy was jolted out of their ride when RJ gave his bae a turn at the wheel, and she learned the hard way that steering and selfie-taking do not mix.
We wouldn’t have blamed RJ if he’d wanted to ground Pop after he went missing in the Persian Gulf. It wasn’t Ridge’s fault — Bill had had him tossed from a helicopter for crashing his and Brooke’s wedding — but still. RJ’s folks are better at vanishing than most magicians!
One more selfie, and then it was off to Paris RJ went with half brother Rick and his family, wife Maya Avant and daughter Elizabeth. We didn’t hear much about the teenager after that, what with the focus shifting to the supposed “death” of Hope’s daughter, grandpa Eric’s erectile dysfunction and the return of loco Sheila. But we’ll give you a hint as to how RJ spent his time overseas: “Gymnase” is “gymnasium” in French.
Upon his return to L.A. in the summer of 2023, RJ (now Joshua Hoffman) revealed a rebellious streak along with his taut torso — and we were living for it. It’s a gutsy move for the heir to a fancypants fashion dynasty to rock a basic Hanes T, but “Bridge’s” son pulled it off. Literally.
Nothing… except that we couldn’t help but suspect that somewhere on the sidelines, RJ’s half brother Thomas was trying to figure out whether his half brother would be an ally… or an adversary.
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