Young & Restless Exclusive: Beth Maitland Outlines the Story That She — and *We* — Badly Want for Traci
It’s past time that it happened, too!
It’s been so long since Cupid took aim at The Young and the Restless’ Traci, we couldn’t blame her if she’d started to wonder whether the cherubic matchmaker had retired. The last time that the beloved heroine was so much as infatuated with anyone was back in 2019, when Cane inspired a few flights of fancy while she was writing Stolen Lockets, Broken Hearts. “I was giddy doing that storyline,” Beth Maitland tells Soaps.com, adding that as a fan of the 1930s and ’40s movies after which Traci’s reveries were styled, “I was sad to see it change course so quickly and end.
“Broken-hearted, if I can be honest. But we have to celebrate what we get, because that’s what makes us go on.”
This shoulda been a love note.
Credit: Howard Wise/JPI
More: A new Young & Restless couple in the making?
Looking ahead, the Emmy winner hopes right along with us that a new relationship is in store for Traci. We’ve championed this idea for eons, noting how inspiring it would be for all viewers to see that romance can land in one’s lap regardless of dress size or the number of candles on their birthday cake. “I want to see love for Traci,” Maitland says. However, “I don’t want to see, you know, crushing and fantasy. Traci has changed the way so many people have thought about themselves in their early life, and many of them are still viewers. So I would also like to have that legacy continued and have Traci represent that.
“Even when she was a teenager, she was a character who was conflicted, who did not fit, and she found her way,” she continues. “And now that she’s older, she is still a nontraditional-looking person for sure, in a soap-star community, but absolutely a real person who has needs, who has desires, who has goals, who has dreams… ”
Our dream leading man for Maitland, right here.
Credit: Jill Johnson/JPI
Were they to come true — imagine Maitland paired with someone like A Martinez (ex-Eduardo, Days of Our Lives) — it would be the ultimate in wish fulfillment for the audience, a glorious sign that “Oh… OK! Maybe we’re not done at X years old! Maybe it’s not over for us just because we don’t look like we live at the gym!”
“That, to me, would really continue Traci’s legacy,” concludes the fan favorite, if we were to show that “it’s never too late, no matter your age or your size. You are beautiful the way you are, the inside and outside, your package and beyond.
“I would love for that story to be told.” Us, too, Beth. Us, too.
While you’re here, review Traci’s life story in the below photo gallery.
