When Bryton James made his Young & Restless debut in 2004, foster kid Devon Hamilton was glacially slow to trust poor little rich girl Lily Winters. And wouldn’t ya know it? Just as he began to thaw toward his co-worker at the rec-center project that was keeping Victor Newman out of jail, the teen’s misbehavior was set to get him sent to a Level 12 facility — in other words, adolescent prison. He needed a hero, and in walked…
Lily’s mother Drucilla saw in Devon a bit of herself at his age — and therefore wanted to steer him clear of some of the mistakes that she had made in her impetuous youth. (All of them would’ve been a bit much to shoot for!) Selling her husband Neil on the idea was… eh, let’s say, not easy. But he eventually came around and agreed to permanently foster Devon.
Though Devon wound up being welcomed with open arms into the Winters family, he was still so bummed that everybody Sixteen Candles’d his birthday that he stole away to the zoo and got himself stranded in the lions’ habitat. He was fine, by the way, but Neil almost died when Lily ran the rescue SUV right into her dad.
Devon tried to reconnect with birth mom Yolanda — but alas, only in vain. The drug addict traded one bad habit (crack) for another (coming on to Neil) till her now-grown little boy felt that the only sensible decision would be to decline her offer to move with her to Seattle.
When it rained, it poured for Devon, as big a magnet for heartache and angst as ever there was. No sooner had he come out on top in a bout with meningitis than he went deaf. Yes, deaf! And on top of that — as if that wasn’t enough! — he got arrested for the murder of Neil’s flirtmate, Carmen Mesta. (Needless to say, Devon was innocent — despite how heated this confrontation looks.)
Because c’mon, you know Devon couldn’t possibly get the former without the latter! After a cochlear implant restored his hearing and he was officially adopted by Neil and Dru, he lost his now-official mother when she went tumbling off a cliff (back up which we still expect her to climb one of these days).
Devon was happily dating Lily’s pal Roxanne, who weirdly never got a last name, when into the Winterses’ lives blew Hurricane Tyra, the “aunt” who proved to be so irresistible that newly remarried Neil cheated on wife Karen Taylor with her, and Devon cheated on his girlfriend with her. Hey, the temptress was played by America’s Next Top Model winner Eva Marcille.
No, Tucker McCall, we are not Devon’s biological father, that would be you, a fact that they only discovered after they’d rubbed each other the wrong way as the younger man pursued a career as a music mogul at his unwitting pop’s record company.
Devon and Tucker might never have become the best of buddies, but there was an almost priceless upside to the former’s discovery of his relation to the latter: When newfound grandmother Katherine Chancellor passed away, she left Devon the bulk of her estate. And, we presume, an entire town’s worth of vaults in which to store the loot.
Devon and Hilary Curtis were so slow to get on the same page about their attraction that, by the time they were both ready to admit that they were hot for one another, she’d — d’oh! — married Neil. Then, just when they were ready to break it to Neil that his marriage was kaput, he was — and we could not make this up — left blind after being electrocuted. So rather than burden him with the truth, Devon and Hilary… Oh, that’s tacky, guys. They cheated on him behind his back (which was overkill since he couldn’t see, anyway!).
Once Neil regained his sight and lost his wife, Devon tied the knot with his beautiful stepmother… only to have her vanish on their honeymoon and return to him with amnesia. Even after Hilary’s memory was restored, it was anything but smooth sailing for the couple, owing largely to the bride’s inability to decide whether she was a bad girl or a reformed bad girl.
In his divorce from Hilary, Devon not only lost his wife, he lost GC Buzz. But at least he was able to stipulate that its new honcho had to wait a year before firing anybody — in other words, Hilary’s co-host/frenemy and his own new girlfriend, Mariah Copeland.
In 2018, well before Abby Newman set her sights on Devon’s sperm, he was already looking to make a donation — to former wife Hilary, whose biological clock wasn’t just ticking, its alarm was going off. But, the former couple’s chemistry being as undeniable as it was, they soon gave up the “artificial” part of their plan to make her a mother via artificial insemination.
Devon and Hilary were happily planning their future as parents when… ack! Lily was so distracted by an argument with her ex-sister-in-law that she ran a red light and got in an accident that landed Hilary on her deathbed. Sadly, as quickly as Devon made her his bride once again, the fates made him a widower.
A resounding “no” was Devon’s answer for a good while after he lost Hilary. But then into his world came Elena Dawson. Suddenly, his heart began to feel something once again besides breaking. If only he wasn’t haunted by visions of his late wife…
The dark cloud that seemed to have taken up residence above Devon’s head only got darker on what should have been a joyful occasion. As he opened fancypants restaurant Society with Abby Newman, he wanted to share the night with Neil. After all that they’d been through, their renewed closeness was reason enough to celebrate. Sadly, it was that very evening that Devon learned that his adoptive father had passed away.
Visions of Hilary were one thing. But then Devon got an eyeful of Genoa City’s newest attorney, Amanda Sinclair, who turned out not just to be a dead ringer for his late missus but — surprise, surprise — her long-lost twin sister as well. Despite the fact that Devon remained committed to Elena, insecurity drove her into the arms of his sexy cousin, Nate Hastings.
In the wake of Elena’s betrayal, Devon did exactly what she feared that he would and grew closer to Amanda. And though Elena began seeing Nate in earnest, her attraction to Devon hadn’t actually diminished any more than had his to her. So basically, everybody slept with everybody in much the same way that decades earlier, Neil and brother Malcolm kept swapping partners with Dru and sister Olivia. Ah, the more things change…
No sooner had Devon settled into a stable new relationship with Amanda than he became a father… sorta. The baby that he and Mariah cooked up for Abby Chancellor was ushered into the world. And though he wasn’t intended to parent Dominic, circumstances conspired to send his paternal instincts into overdrive.
Devon knew that he was rolling the dice in a big way by mixing family matters and corporate intrigue to take Lily’s suggestion that they merge Hamilton-Winters with Chancellor Industries to form one giant mega-company. But then he looked at how well the Newmans work together, and the Abbotts, and… Wait, why would anybody have gone along with that crazy an idea!
Devon came to regret hiring Nate nine ways to Sunday after his cousin became so fed up with his treatment at CW that he struck a deal with Victoria Newman that would allow Newman Enterprises to seize controlling interest in the company. Ya know what? On second thought, Devon regretted hiring Nate 10 ways to Sunday, not nine.
One day, Devon was in a mood. So was Abby. So they brewed a pot of coffee, sat down and sensibly talked through their feelings. they set about banging all over his penthouse and were still entangled in one another when who should walk in but Amanda and Chance? In short order, not one but two relationships went up in smoke, and never again would we be able to look at those stairs the same way.
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