With “The Bold and the Beautiful” fans still recovering from Wednesday’s jaw-dropper of a reveal, Bradley Bell, executive producer of the CBS daytime soap, has spoken out about the twist, saying that the shocking turn “is important because it is about tolerance.”
On Wednesday’s episode, it was revealed that Maya Avant (played by Karla Mosley) is actually transgendered. The moment of discovery came during a confrontational moment between Maya and her sister Nicole (Reign Edwards).
“You’re not my sister, Maya. You’re not Maya at all,” Nicole said during the episode. “You’re Myron, my brother.”
In a statement provided to TheWrap after the episode aired, Bell said that the Maya/Myron story “is about respecting other people’s differences and uniqueness.
“The transgender story we are telling on ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ is important because it is about tolerance,“ Bell, executive producer and head writer on the show, said. “It is about people respecting other people’s differences and their uniqueness. In the end, we all want to be loved and in order to love someone else you first have to love yourself. If you are transgender, gay, straight, it doesn’t matter. It’s about finding love in life. This is a love story.”
CBS Entertainment’s senior vice president of daytime, Angelica McDaniel, added that the storyline falls in the daytime television tradition of tackling pressing topics in society, vowing that the story will be told in a responsible way.
“Daytime has a great history of storytelling that involves important social issues,” McDaniel said. “The producers have developed a beautiful story here, and are committed to telling it in a way that is responsible, truthful and authentic.”
Fan reaction to the storyline came swift and strong on social media, with many viewers simply expressing shock, and others praising the show’s bravery.
“Seriously it takes guts for a major Soap Opera and a MAJOR Network (CBS) to go forth with this,” a fan named Chante tweeted. “#BoldandBeautiful has no fear apparently.”
Mosley took to Twitter as well to thank fans for their reception and to promise “much more to come.”
“Totally not supposed to be tweeting, but thanks for all the LOVE,” Mosley tweeted.”So much more to come.”
Watch the scene below: