What Did Matt Clark Do to Sharon and Nick on Young and Restless? Relive The Whole Sordid Tale!

The return of the notorious Matt Clark on Young and Restless spells nothing but trouble for Nick (Joshua Morrow) and Sharon (Sharon Case), as the villain has tortured the pair multiple times over the years. As Roger Howarth assumes the role, here’s a look back at Matt’s dirty deeds and all the ways he targeted the Newmans.

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When Tamara Braun was introduced to Young and Restless viewers earlier this month as Sienna Bacall and referenced her husband, Mitch Bacall, viewers speculated that Mitch was the role designated for soap vet Roger Howarth. Those suspicions were confirmed when the show released a video titled “Meet the Bacalls” teasing Howarth’s imminent debut. But in […]

Too Cruel For School

Jock Matt Clark (then-Eddie Cibrian) was introduced in 1994. From the start, Matt had a beef with Nick, who he called Rich Boy. Matt dated Sharon Collins first, but she ultimately dumped him to be with Nick, intensifying the rivalry (at least on Matt’s part). Matt’s anger issues were on clear display when he and Nick got into a fistfight, then when he found out that the beautiful coat Sharon was wearing was a gift from her new beau. Matt first tore it off her back, then raped the young woman.

A traumatized Sharon was too frightened to come forward about the assault, hiding it both from Nick and from her mom — but when her pal Amy Wilson (Julianne Morris Polaha) expressed interest in Matt, Sharon confided in her, hoping to deter Amy from dating him. Amy went straight to Matt, who denied Sharon’s accusation. The lying jerk scoffed that Sharon was just bitter because he had ended their relationship (when it was actually the other way around).

Matt’s rage continued to build when Nick and Sharon were named king and queen of a school dance, besting Matt and Amy for the title. Seething, he resolved to destroy Nick and Sharon’s romance.

Bringing Up Baby

In 1995, Matt struck paydirt in his quest. He and a buddy tracked down a mechanic in Madison, WI named Frank Barrett (Phil Dozois), who had been Sharon’s high school sweetheart. Frank confessed that when they were together, a 16-year-old Sharon had gotten pregnant and given birth, placing the baby up for adoption.

As Sharon and Nick’s relationship got more serious, she longed to open up to him about the baby, but feared he would reject her — especially after he placed an engagement ring on her finger. While she was still working up the courage to come clean to Nick, Matt revealed it all in a letter that he delivered to Nick. Nick didn’t believe a word of it, though, and confronted him at Crimson Lights. A violent brawl ensued.

Anguished, Sharon took the engagement ring off her finger and mailed it back to her beloved. But when Nick came to her to assure her of his love, Sharon poured out the truth about her past. The two pledged never to keep secrets from each other ever again.

Truth Be Told

However, there was one thing Sharon was still keeping from him: that she had been raped by Matt. That truth came out when Nick and Sharon were poised to be intimate, and she was unable to go through with it. Enraged, Nick tried to buy a gun on his way to Matt’s apartment but was unsuccessful. As he pulled up to Matt’s dwelling, Nick spied Sharon peeling away in her own car. Entering Matt’s home, Nick discovered the brute lying in a pool of his own blood! Nick discovered a gun lying nearby and began to wipe it down, thinking Sharon had done the deed and her fingerprints were on it. Just then, the police entered. Nick was arrested and indicted for attempted murder, as Matt survived the shooting.

Nick facing the very real possibility of a prison sentence was music to Matt’s ears. So when he remembered who had really shot him — Amy, who had grown weary of Matt’s obsessive anger toward Nick and wanted to end their relationship — of course, Matt had no intention of exonerating Nick!

Nick’s dad, Victor (Eric Braeden), eventually tracked Amy down in Chicago — but she was suffering from amnesia. Back in Genoa City, Sharon took the stand at Nick’s trial and was forced to admit that Matt had raped her. Matt, however, testified under oath that the sexual encounter had been consensual. Nick’s attorney, John Silva (John Castellanos), tried his best to convince the jury that Matt had been shot prior to Nick’s arrival at his home on the night of the shooting, but they weren’t convinced and returned a guilty verdict. Nick was sentenced to 15 years in prison!

Life behind bars was anything but pleasant for Nick, who was viciously assaulted by fellow inmate Larry Warton, aka The Wart Man (David “Shark” Fralick). Desperate to secure his son’s freedom, Victor decided that his best bet was to force a confrontation between Matt and Amy, who Victor had had transferred to Fairview Sanitarium. Matt was able to gain access to Amy’s room by posing as a doctor, and when he tried to initiate sex, she remembered that he had raped her! She came forward and admitted to shooting Matt, so Nick’s conviction was tossed out. Nick and Sharon’s wedding was back on! Matt slinked out of town in 1996, the same year Nick and Sharon became Mr. and Mrs.

Face Off

In 2000, Sharon and Nick hired a man named Carter Mills to work at Crimson Lights, which they now owned, and he wormed his way into their lives without them knowing that he was actually Matt Clark with a new name and a new face, courtesy of extensive plastic surgery! (Russell Lawrence initially played the role, but was soon replaced by Rick Hearst, now General Hospital’s Ric.)

One night, “Carter” was invited to join Nick and Sharon for dinner in their home. Matt arranged for Nick to be delayed. Alone with Sharon, he slipped a drug called Rohypnol into Sharon’s margarita. When she became incapacitated, Matt moved to rape her again, but Nick arrived home just in time to interrupt. “Carter” played it all off as Sharon simply having had too much to drink, and Nick was none the wiser.

Starting in 2000 and continuing into 2001, Matt — in cahoots with Larry, Nick’s former prison foe — plotted revenge against Nick by making it look like he was a drug dealer who was manufacturing and selling ecstasy to college kids. Larry and “Carter” staged public altercations to convince Nick and Sharon that “Carter” was loyal to them. Matt then slipped the drugs into a coffee bag at Crimson Lights. A student named Jordan, who ingested a bad batch of the drugs, died, seemingly from the tainted product — but in actuality, Matt had murdered him in cold blood, slipping into his hospital room and pulling out his respirator!

When the cops found the drugs Matt had planted and toxicology reports linked them back to Nick, a stunned Nick was arrested on drug and murder charges. Convinced his son was innocent, Victor noted that the only person with incentive to try to destroy Nick was Matt Clark, and wondered if he might be back in their midst with an assumed identity. “Carter,” meanwhile, was getting jumpy, concerned that Larry would turn on him to save himself.

The walls started to close in on Matt when the woman who he’d been seeing, Tricia Dennison (Sabryn Genet) — who he had drugged and date-raped early in their involvement, unbeknownst to her — got suspicious of the pills she found in “Carter’s” possession and decided to have them analyzed. At the same time, Victor got proof that Matt had undergone plastic surgery.

Opposite this, “Carter” rented a remote cabin in the woods with plans to lure Sharon there. His sick goal? Drug and rape Sharon, get the whole thing on tape, along with him confessing his true identity, and then ship the recording to Nick.

Matt came home to discover Ryan McNeil (Scott Reeves) in the process of saving Tricia from attempting to take her own life; she was despondent after getting proof that the drugs “Carter” had claimed were allergy pills were really a date rape drug and realized that he’d sexually assaulted her. Matt knocked out Ryan and tossed him in a closet and headed back to the cabin to meet Sharon, unaware that Tricia was on her way there, too!

At that exact moment, Larry was confessing to a still-jailed and totally gobsmacked Nick that “Carter” was really Matt Clark! Nick got word to Victor, who took off after Matt. Meanwhile, Sharon showed up at the cabin before “Carter” got back and was totally freaked out when she spotted a photo of Matt Clark on a bureau door. When “Carter” arrived, he told her that Matt was the one who framed Nick and encouraged her to look into his eyes. It was then that she realized who “Carter” really was!

Final Countdown

Matt taunted Sharon and tried to force himself on her, tearing at her clothes as she quaked in fear. Matt heard an approaching Victor and tried to bolt with Sharon, but she fought back, so he slipped out the back door solo. Victor stormed in and found Sharon weeping, but safe.

As police sirens blared in the distance, bound for the cabin, Matt discovered Tricia in her car on the property and forced her to start driving. She did so — but deliberately drove them off the road! Cops discovered the vehicle in a ravine, and Matt and Tricia were whisked off for medical care. Victor arrived at the prison to tell Nick that he’d been granted bail and that Matt was in such rough shape, he wasn’t expected to survive.

Nick, though, was determined to get a confession out of Matt to clear his own name while he still could. The district attorney agreed to let Nick into Matt’s hospital room, outfitted with a recording device under his shirt. But when the two men came face to face, Matt forced him to ditch the wire. He then taunted Nick by lying that the night Nick and Sharon had invited “Carter” to dinner, he had raped Sharon after drugging her. Nick didn’t buy it and taunted Matt right back, telling him that he was a free man while Matt was dying. “I won,” he said.

Matt began gasping for air, and Nick sent the guard in the room to fetch help. Nick approached Matt’s bed, and Matt yanked out his breathing tubes, placing them in a shocked Nick’s hands. “No, I won,” the villain declared. His heart monitor went flat, and Nick was still standing there, the tubes from the ventilator in his hands, when the guard returned to the room. Doctors rushed in and tried to save Matt, but he was declared dead.

While the guard painted a damning version of events to the D.A., Nick poured out the whole story of what had happened to Sharon and Victor. A bench trial ensued, and Nick was exonerated when Larry came forward and confessed to working with Matt to frame Nick. Nick and Sharon were finally free of the stench of Matt’s deviousness — until now, that is!