maurice benard sonny abc gh

Where’s the love?

Let’s face it: No one is ever quite what they seem in Port Charles. Mobster or coffee importer? Doting girlfriend or sociopathic daughter of a psycho? Then there’s Dex. The General Hospital newbie is ostensibly one of Sonny’s men, all the while secretly working with Michael to bring the don down. And that, naturally, ticks off a good chunk of Sonny’s fans.

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On Maurice Benard’s most recent State of Mind, he hosted Dex’s portrayer, Evan Hofer, which of course meant tweeting out a clip of the episode to fans. That tease wasn’t enough for one fan, though — not by a long shot.

“I don’t like the character of Dex,” Jo Jo replied to Benard’s State of Mind tweet. “Not any kind of way. I’m sorry. I didn’t watch this one because of that fact, but I love you, Maurice.” 

The long time General Hospital vet, though, wasn’t having it.

“I was the most hated character on daytime when I started,” he reminded her. “Go back and see what Sonny did during the first three months.”

Though most fans, of course, rushed to Sonny’s defense (you don’t make it almost 30 years on a soap without being loved), a few did recall those early days.

“I remember…” Tweet Tweet replied to Benard. “The strippers used to say he was abusive. He beat up Jagger, fed drugs to Karen, along with his mafia dealings.”

Sonny’s always operated in a morally grey area, but in those early days, that grey was a whole lot darker! In fact, on the second State of Mind featuring Kin Shriner (Scotty) and Jacklyn Zeman (Bobbie), Benard and Shriner got into the mobster’s darker days a bit.

“We used to fight forever because I killed [Karen] or something,” Benard recalled.

“I believe that you were responsible for killing my daughter Karen with drugs,” Shriner noted in character. In fact, the “Sonny/Scotty storyline can never go any further than that. It starts and stops right there. I still say you did it!”

Granted, Karen died a full decade after Sonny got her hooked on drugs… but that doesn’t exactly let Sonny off the hook for being a scumbag. Because when he was feeding her drugs, Karen was an underage stripper in his club! So, yeah, even if Dex may be upsetting fans now, give him some time to grow. He could turn out to be the next Sonny!

And if not… soaps always need more characters we love to hate!

Refresh your memory of just how bad Sonny was with our photo gallery of his 29 years in Port Charles.