As Bold & Beautiful Firing Leaves Fans Feverishly Split, Matthew Atkinson Speaks Out

And folks may not like what he has to say about Thomas!

Like it or not, consequences have actions. And The Bold and the Beautiful‘s Thomas had to face them last week when his own family booted him from Forrester Creations as punishment for his CPS stunt.

But was it the right course of action? The wrong one? That’s a tough call, so we turned to the fans over on Facebook to ask them if they agreed with Thomas’ dramatic firing. They responded in spades — but they didn’t all answer in one voice!

Maggie McGuire Shuster, for instance, did not hold back on her agreement with the decision, writing, “Absolutely! How many times can the guy say ‘I’m so, so sorry.’ No one even mentioned the fact that he kept Sheila’s secret and ended up getting Finn and Steffy shot. Hello! And how many times has he made his son keep a secret (lie) for him? He deserved getting fired. Let him honestly redeem himself before they let him back in.”

Others felt that he should be forced to take some time away from the company at least, if for nothing else than to be given Family and Medical Leave to get help.

“A suspension, yes,” Betty-Anne Kazmirchuk Complin wrote, “until he is declared to be mentally fit by a true professional and not his mommy. That is one seriously messed up character.”

Then there were those who just flat out felt the whole thing was wrong, from Evelyn Dumont who called everyone who ousted Thomas “hypocrites,” to Carolyn Michel calling out what she saw as an incredibly poor business decision.

“Absolutely not,” she wrote. “They are using the company to punish him. He just designed the most successful line for them (all Hope did was lend her name), making them millions. Beyond me that not even Carter thought about that.”

Matthew Atkinson, though, had more than a few thoughts on what’s been happening — and what he thinks should happen — to Thomas. On his Bold Live episode recently, he admitted that he thinks it’s time for Thomas to strike out on his own and do battle with his family and the Forresters. And now that Thomas has been canned, it seems like this might be just the time for that to happen.

“I think Thomas has total reason to be completely P.O.’d at his father,” Atkinson said. Ridge essentially went running to Taylor saying he wanted her back and promising “’it’s not about Brooke, it’s because I love you.’”

And then the truth about Thomas’ CPS call came out and, surprise, surprise, it turns out Ridge was lying through his teeth!

“He made these promises that weren’t actually true,” Atkinson explained. “And that’s him hurting Thomas’ mother again. So I see every reason for Thomas to maybe sideline, start his own fashion company or do something that is more as an antithesis to Forrester Creations and his family so he can fight his family.”

And surely, this is the moment for Thomas to strike out on his own and do battle — especially since he doesn’t really have any choice now that he’s been canned from his family’s company! While Atkinson had mused about the possibility of Thomas and Hope starting their own company, after this past week, that looks incredibly unlikely.

But believe it or not, Atkinson is not looking for revenge for what happened to Thomas. Instead, he wants redemption.

In starting his own company and taking on his family and Forrester Creations, he noted, “you can have them fight and hash out all of the things that are wrong with everything that everyone did in the past. And it’s not just ‘Thomas is a piece of crap because he did something stupid, and everyone is a saint.’ No, everyone else isn’t a saint. And I think that through that, you can lead to a redemptive storyline.”

Ultimately, he noted, “there’s always a way to redemption.” But in Thomas’ case, “I think it’s through a darker path.”

And that is sure to divide fans even further!

It’s been a long, windy road to get here, so check out our 2022 Bold & Beautiful year in review photo gallery to follow it.