Steve Burton Leaves ‘Young And Restless,’ Could He Eventually Return?

Fans have been buzzing over Steve Burton leaving The Young and the Restless, and people are anxious to know what comes next for the actor. He announced his decision to leave Y&R quite a while back, but viewers just watched his last scenes in the role of Dylan McAvoy last week. What comes next for him? Could he return at some point, and where do things go from here for Sharon and his other loved ones in Genoa City?

After four years on the soap, the announcement came in October that Steve Burton was leaving Young and Restless. Spoilers had hinted that there would be heartbreaking scenes as the actor wrapped up his role as Dylan McAvoy, and indeed everybody watched last week as he said a supposed final goodbye to Sharon, Nikki, and Paul.

Why did Burton leave Young and Restless? Many speculated that the writing regime change that took place recently on the soap played a part his decision, but the actor tells Soap Opera Digest that there was no one specific moment that sparked his departure. As Steve’s fans know, his family is based in Nashville, Tennessee, these days, and that meant a lot of traveling and missing things with his wife and three children. The former Y&R and General Hospital star indicates that the distance and traveling definitely played a part in his move to leave the series.

It clearly was not an easy choice for Burton to leave Young and Restless, and he notes it was a wonderful experience and that everybody associated with Y&R was great. He specifically called out Joshua Morrow (who plays Nick), Sharon Case (who plays Sharon), and Melody Thomas Scott (who plays Nikki) as castmates he grew particularly close to in his time on the show.

In his chat with On Air, On Soaps, Steve opened up about how close he became to Doug Davidson, who plays Paul, and he noted that their last scenes together were brutal to film. There is no question that Steve grew quite close to the Y&R crew during his time there and that leaving was a challenging move to make.

While the decision to leave may have been a tough one, Burton has a lot of irons in the fire and is enjoying the time he now gets to spend with his family doing day-to-day things. Steve is a part-owner in several craft beer bars, and he co-owns a restaurant with former General Hospital star Jonathan Jackson. He just started an online project called Hollywood Schooled with fellow GH bud Derk Cheetwood, who plays Max, and he notes that he’s got some music and lifestyle projects in the works as well.

Has Burton left Young and Restless for good? As viewers saw, the door was certainly left open for a return or a recast. At the moment, there are no spoilers detailing that the character of Dylan will be coming back anytime soon, as McAvoy said his goodbyes and headed off to the Witness Protection Program. However, it would be easy to bring the character back should the show decide they wanted to head in that direction.

Burton may feel that leaving Young and Restless is the right move for now, but he made it clear that he doesn’t know what will happen down the road and seemed very open to the idea of a return. As soon as Steve announced his decision to leave Y&R, fans started speculating that he might head back to General Hospital, despite the fact that Billy Miller now is in the role of Jason Morgan. Plenty of theories about how that could play out started to circulate, but at this point, a return to GH doesn’t seem likely.

Where do things head next in Genoa City in the wake of Dylan’s departure? At the moment, the action is focusing on other storylines, but Young and Restless spoilers from SheKnows Soaps detail that Sharon will be struggling quite a bit heading into the February sweeps as she works on moving forward while keeping the secret about what really happened with Dylan.

Fans have been quite vocal about their sadness over the news that Steve Burton was leaving Young and Restless, but they are glad that he got a juicy storyline to work through as he departed. As for whether he might eventually return to Y&R or even head to one of the other soaps, people will have to hang tight and see if any spoilers develop on that front down the road.

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