Lynn Herring Opens Up About Life After Loss: 'GH Helped Me So Much'

May 9, 2025, marked the first wedding anniversary that General Hospital fave Lynn Herring (Lucy) spent without her late husband, Wayne Northrop, known to soap fans for his work as Days of Our Lives‘s Roman Brady and Alex North, Dynasty‘s Michael Culhane and Port Charles‘s Rex Stanton. She had been married to the actor since 1981, and he passed away at the age of 77 on November 27, 2024. Now, in a new interview with TV Insider, the star is opening up about how her GH family has helped her cope with such a painful loss.

The Show Must Go On

Lucy has been in the thick of the Port Charles action over the past several months — in addition to her role at Deception, Lucy has been busily planning the Nurses’ Ball, and has also struck up a friendship of sorts with the show’s new baddie, Jenz Sidwell, played by Carlo Rota. And according to Herring, her GH duties have been a welcome distraction as she navigates life without her longtime spouse. “You really can’t let other thoughts invade your mind because you’re problem-solving and being creative,” she explained to the outlet. “GH helped me so much, because you get there, and we have such a good group. They’ve all been my friends for so long, so you feel like you’re coming back to family, and you crack jokes, and they just treat me like everything’s the same. It’s a total escapism to get away from any sad thoughts.”

The actress also voiced her appreciation for the warm outpouring of condolences and support she received after Northrop’s passing, which she described as “overwhelming.” Herring mused, “As odd as it is, when people come up to you, there’s a connection of knowing them even though we don’t live in the same town or always share all the same values, but there’s the value that they will watch and be entertained.” She marveled, “That people out there really care what happens to us is amazing.”

Herring’s responsibilities at work are never greater than during Nurses’ Ball season, and this year, Lucy will once again emcee the ball. Of this year’s gala, which plays out over several episodes beginning on May 20, Herring teased that fans can look forward to “two really wonderful stories that are dramatic that come to a head at the ball. Sometimes we haven’t had as much drama, and this one is good.”

Alongside the drama, of course, will be the emotional aspect of the Nurses’ Ball, a tradition that GH introduced back in 1994. Lucy founded the fundraising event, which brings awareness to HIV and AIDS-related causes and funds research to help eradicate the disease and support those living with it. Herring noted that when delivering Lucy’s welcome speech this year, “I choked up, and the audience kind of choked up, too, because we’re reliving a tradition and then also emphasizing how dark it was in the AIDS/HIV days and how far we’ve come. And this speech, they just did such a nice job because it kind of re-lit my enthusiasm about how much in real life communities come together for a cause, and it became very real for that moment when I was up on the stage.”

ABC

Hostess With The Mostest: Herring as Lucy at the inaugural Nurses’ Ball in 1994.