SOAP UPDATE: Ari Zucker Belongs on “Days Of Our Lives"

NOTE: Information in this article (originally published on Medium and Illumination) was updated on June 26, 2024 by veteran soap reporter Elaine Madison.

It's turning out that the lawsuit Arianne Zucker bravely filed against "Days of Our Lives" was only part of the battle. It's turning out not to be the actual war. And my sources tell me that there's a great possibility Ari Zucker just may win the war!

On the first front is the fact that Peacock/Corday/Sony have been swamped with some 2,000 pieces of fan mail demanding that Ari Zucker be reinstated on the show.

On the second front are the persistent rumors that highly controversial novelist and media renegade Kola Boof, a huge Ari Zucker fan and former writer at "Days of Our Lives" for a short stint in 2006, is actually returning to the soap.

I was able to contact Ms. Boof and she told me there's no truth to that whatsoever. Kola claims unequivocally that she has nothing to do with the soap and that she is not returning. However, the very next day the show's current head writer Ron Carlivati started following Kola Boof on X (formerly known as Twitter). And Boof, an outspoken advocate for Zucker's return, has recently been seen in Burbank lunching with higher ups from both Sony and Corday--despite her claim that she has nothing whatsoever to do with the show.

There are strong rumors that Boof has been consulting with the show under the table for years--advising them on cultural and feminist aspects of the show. But Kola outright denies this. She claims Ken Corday would be too afraid to bring her back due to the publicity it would cause. She claims she is nothing but a fan of the show and that people find her colorful and interesting therefore they are projecting their wishes into the ether.

Still, Kola admits that she has been loudly advocating for Zucker behind the scenes. She gave me permission to quote her saying the following:

"Most of the people who work at 'Days' deeply love Ari Zucker. They want her back on set. And so do the fans. I think any smart business model would focus on having a soap opera that is soapy and pleases the fans and not make everything into a political battle. Stop focusing on socio-political camel sh*t and get back to giving us a good dirty soap to watch. We want to see Nicole! The show is dying because of these stupid public squabbles over stuff the viewers don't care about."--Kola Boof

I will keep an eye on the Boof return rumors.

Here is everything I know about Ari Zucker's battle with the show thus far:

For nearly twenty years she was the leading lady of NBC’s top soap “Days of Our Lives.” And then she decided to take a stand for herself, her cast mates and on behalf of sexually harassed workers of all sexes everywhere. But what is the price Ari Zucker will pay?

For legal reasons, Ms. Zucker isn’t doing interviews right about now. She’s in the middle of a precedent-setting lawsuit against one of the most powerful Kingmakers in all of television, Ken Corday, the owner of Corday Productions which produces his chief property, the legendary “Days of Our Lives."

If you’ve been watching Peacock’s hit prime-time soap opera “Days of Our Lives” over the last 20 years — you’re quite familiar with one of the most fun-to-watch vixens to ever botch your reconstructive surgery, steal your baby, steal your man or in Jada Hunter’s case drive you to an abortionist— the sexually traumatized ex-porn star turned smart chick Dimera mansion socialite Nicole Walker.

The character was first introduced in 1998 as a one-note teen model for Eric — she wasn’t meant to be long-term according to the character’s creator, Writer Sally Sussman Morina — but in the hands of actress Arianne Zucker (co-workers call her Ari) — Nicole Walker quickly became one of the most interesting and popular characters in all of daytime television.

Zucker was promptly described in the soap opera press as: “a stunning leggy California blonde adept at mischievous glances and putting some feeling in her lines” — but as a former viewer of DAYS and the daughter of veteran soap opera producer/writers, I would take it a lot further and emphatically say that Ari Zucker’s acting style is a study in ‘keeping it real.’

Though she definitely delivers the catty drama and sad girl pathos on a dime— it’s the actress’s impeccable comic timing that made her stand out and infused very lurid storylines with a touch of populist relatability. She not only made us care about Nicole — Zucker made us empathetic to social issues and situations that most of us had been raised to be judgmental and snobby about.

Ari Zucker wasn’t just another cute blonde. She possessed subtle traits of a character actress. Ari was always firmly on the side of her character — no matter how low Nicole stooped — the actress — brought it hard.

She literally started as nothing more than disposable eye candy and quickly morphed into one of the most consistently powerful and commanding dramatic actresses on “Days of Our Lives” (who else can bring you to tears while also making you root for their baby snatching? Who else can play Kristen Dimera pretending to be Nicole but really Kristen wearing a mask!).

She’s been nominated for the Emmy Award…five…yes, 5…five times! Which is very hard to do on an NBC soap, because their network gets less votes than ABC and CBS due to having only one soap on NBC (now Peacock) with a direct pool. The fact that Ari hasn’t yet won is clearly about the way she looks. Or at least it was…until she sued Ken Corday.

Last month (February 8th, 2024), flanked by her attorneys, Ari Zucker bravely announced in a videotaped press conference that she had filed a ‘sexual harassment’ lawsuit against the former Executive Producer of “Days of Our Lives” — Albert Alarr — as well as the owner of the show, Ken Corday.

In the complaint, Zucker alleges that she was subjected to years of inappropriate touching. She alleges that female cast members were paid less than the males on the show and that her salary was cut after she reported the allegations to the front office.

Of course Albert Alarr has categorically denied all of the allegations against him. In no way is this article saying that he or Corday are in fact guilty of any wrong-doing. But we do make it clear that we (the 8 of us) believe Ari Zucker. As you read on, it will become clearer and clearer to you why we’ve unanimously taken that position at HERZ.

Ari Zucker alleges that Albert Alarr groped and kissed her. To be more specific, he would force her into hugs to squish her breasts against his chest while suggestively moaning “Oh Ari” as if she should feel complimented to be treated like a sex object — he allegedly touched her genitals — which is the worst violation a woman can experience at work.

And for quite a long time — Ari Zucker not only had to remember 30–60 pages of dialogue per episode (tidbit: the budget at DAYS is so low that they’re known for only allowing one takes and are known to film multiple episodes in a single day, the most grueling schedule in soaps). But in the midst of that pressure as an actress, Ari also allegedly had to tolerate Albert Alarr’s stream of vulgar comments (he barked sexual innuendos at female actors before, after and during scenes). The lawsuit alleges that he sometimes sat in the production booth watching as Ari Zucker did semi-nude bedroom scenes — and notably, during an HR investigation he was allowed to watch as Zucker’s body was exposed.

Women who have been raped or sexually assaulted in some way know all too well how humiliating and emotionally traumatizing such exams can be.

This is why we teach our children, especially our girls, to let us know if something foul is being done to them against their will. Being a mom herself, Ari knew that she couldn’t remain silent. Finally…Ari Zucker was that little girl in all of us who found the courage to take a stand. She reported the misconduct to show runner (and owner) Ken Corday.

That in-house HR investigation we told you about supposedly went on for months. In the end, they found Albert Alarr innocent (yes, innocent) of any wrong-doing; innocent of any of the allegations that several actors on the show were making about his conduct.

It was a frustrating outcome. But due to Ari Zucker’s continued standing up for herself and other actresses on the show — news venue DEADLINE broke the story nationwide causing a frenzy of publicity and tongue-wagging. Former DAYS superstar (Billie Reed) turned prime time reality show celeb Lisa Rinna lent her voice in confirming rumors of the “disgusting” work environment at DAYS under Alarr’s leadership (link).

SAG-AFTRA officials (at the order of SAG President Fran Drescher) instigated their own investigation, thereby lighting a fire under Ken Corday’s arse.

And after much significant scrutiny and public pressure, Albert Alarr was finally fired from “Days of Our Lives” on August 4th, 2023.

FIRING SQUAD

After being fired Albert Alarr doubled down on his denials of any wrong-doing. He also claimed that all of this ill will was happening because he was a…wait for it…a Black man (as if being Black makes one incapable of sexual harassment). But on the sound stages of DAYS, you could hear singing: “Ding dong the witch is dead!” Those who allege to have suffered under Alarr’s dominant control of the show for so many, many years partied like it was 1999!

At the time, everyone in the soap industry had cheered what we thought was a long overdue victory for women working on soaps. Those who know me personally are well aware that my father was a Producer on the classic ABC soap “Ryan’s Hope” and that my mother was a writer at both “All My Children” and “General Hospital.” Now retired — the both of them (long divorced) confided to me in separate telephone calls that this behavior was rampant on soaps when they were working.

My dad in particular said that male producers on soaps were like dogs in a tree park — pissing on every tree. “It was the norm in those days” my dad quipped. “One actress on a soap called ‘Love of Life” was raped behind her house set by a director — her fake kitchen set!-and her real life husband came to the show and pulled a gun on the whole production staff. I was just a fill-in Production assistant on that show — a decade before I Produced Ryan’s Hope. But I feared I might not make it home that day. The husband kept demanding that we give him the director’s home address. The police came and calmed it all down. Everyone made the actress out to be a liar. Attention-seeking, always wearing short skirts. It’s how sexual harassment was handled in those days. The woman was always at fault for her own debasement. And this was actually full blown rape. But none of us saw it happen — we couldn’t prove it happened. I just believed her because there was something in her eyes. And why would she lie about it and throw such a fit shutting down production? I know she was telling the truth because of the way men spoke in those offices in those days. That director — they used him again. He never directed her scenes again — but “Love of Live” continued using him. I never took part in that kind of behavior because I was married to my first wife and I’d been raised a strict Catholic, I’d been an altar boy. But there was constant bragging and grinning about groping the beautiful actresses or pressuring them into sex to keep from being written off the shows. In fact, many times young actresses put out for a Producer or a Proctor and Gamble sponsor and still got written off the show. Some of the biggest female stars in soaps…put out. That’s just how it was in all entertainment mediums in those days. Across the spectrum.”

Both my parents, as retired soap veterans, told me that they 100% believe Ari Zucker’s accusations.

But sadly, for doing the right thing — speaking out regarding what had become a ‘culture of harassment’ at DAYS — Ari Zucker was first penalized by the show (pay cuts, reduced screen time) and finally retaliated against — she was ultimately fired from a show that she had loyally devoted nearly twenty years of her life to.

Ken Corday fired her.

But now we’re going to get down to the Nitty Gritty.

THE NITTY GRITTY

A woman who is currently (March 2024) employed at “Days of Our Lives” agreed to speak to us. But only if we kept her identity secret. For those reasons, we will refer to her as “PEGGY.”

Peggy told us: “First up — let’s establish one thing from the beginning — Ken Corday is almost never at the studio or on set at DAYS. Ken doesn’t have a clue what goes on at the show. And I want that established right up front because Ken Corday is one of the finest bosses you could ever work for. There is no way…that I believe…he would deliberately let any woman on this show be disrespected, debased, abused and certainly not sexually harassed. This is his parent’s legacy, this show. Ken values and respects what his parents built and he’s damn near killed himself to keep this show on the air and to keep Salem going. That is something that viewers need to understand. Ken Corday has always been against racism, against sexism, against ageism — what other show has actors in their sixties and seventies leading storylines? That’s Ken’s doing! Ken Corday is a very fine human being.

Now with that said….do I believe that Ken maybe made a mistake being too loyal to his golf buddy and not trusting his gut instead of taking the in-house investigation as gospel? Maybe so. He definitely struggled with it for a while. We’re all human beings. We all make mistakes or have poor judgement at times. But Ken Corday is not a bad person, he’s not one of these men who harms or abuses women. Ken has an extremely high opinion of women and we have always been listened to and treated with the utmost respect both in front of the camera and behind the camera at ‘Days of Our Lives.’ This show is a family. We are a family! And Ken is one of the best producers in all of television — that’s who Ken Corday is.”

I asked her about Albert Alarr.

Peggy: “Albert Alarr, and I have worked closely with him — he is a whole other can of worms from Ken. That slimy bastard had us all smiling in his face and spitting at his backside. We were terrified! Still are! You think I want to lose my job, lose my income by coming out and publicly saying what an annoying dirty old man that molester was? The women at ‘Days of Our Lives’ could tell you a whole encyclopedia worth of stories about that man’s inability to keep his mouth clean, his hands to himself and his eyes on the goddamned scripts! Not women’s body parts! I’m telling you right now…that Ari Zucker is not lying about what’s been happening for years to dozens of women on this show. She has no reason to throw away her life’s work over a bunch of lies.

She’s telling the truth about Albert Alarr and how he took advantage of his power at DAYS. And everybody on this show — including most of the men — are rooting for her to win! We love Ari. We see Ari as ours — our family. But we also love Ken Corday and we don’t want this show to sink. This is our livelihood Elaine. And this show is an institution that deserves to stay on the air after sixty years. We don’t want to destroy Ken and everything his parents built. Everyone on the show is just torn apart by this lawsuit. We’ve already lost Bill Hayes, one of the elder guardians of the cast — and now this?”

Would you be willing to testify for Ari in court?

Peggy: “Absolutely not. No. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love Ari and want her to win. I do.”

Peggy’s comments, her passionate love for both Ken Corday and Ari Zucker, made me realize why an actor would put up with this treatment for so long.

Ari Zucker must have seen these people as ‘extended family’ — she must have thought that with time and patience — things would change for the better. So for years she (and other actresses on the show as well) stuck it out. She must of tolerated things as long as she could and kept giving her fuel to Ken’s ship out of ‘family loyalty.’

And then also towards the end, there had to be a gnawing fear of what powerful people at Corday Productions and NBC/Peacock could do to her career. She had to have known all of that before taking such a valiant and desperate step. But like I said, Ari Zucker is the mother of a daughter, so she had to step off the curb and do the right thing.

Knowing that…makes her suffering all the more palpable and painful.

But then PEGGY made me aware that this isn’t the first time that such disturbing allegations nearly toppled “Days of Our Lives.”

Peggy says: “We had an actor on the show years ago. His character was paired with Carly, Billie and Hope in a romance. He was playing a romantic lead. Really handsome guy — could probably get any woman he wanted in real life — which is why it was so strange that he was such a cad towards his lady co-stars on the show. He had come over from ‘Another World.’”

I told Peggy — for legal reasons — let’s call the actor in question ROBERTO BO.

Peggy: “Roberto Bo…got ice cream on the front blouse of the actress who played Carly and tried to lick it off. His tongue touched her nipple through the fabric. He then lightly bit down on her nipple! I wasn’t there when it happened. But word got around to everyone. The actress playing Carly was very upset. Her real life husband, who also played on the show as Lawrence, had some words at one point with Roberto Bo. But Carly was a trooper and she let it go. About a week later we get word back from an actress on ‘Another World’ that she had heard what happened on DAYS. She told us we’d better be careful because Roberto Bo had held her against her will in her dressing room and forced her to tongue-kiss him. He had cupped her buttocks and squeezed them. She said Producers on the show gave him a slap on the wrist and nothing was done about it. Before we could even pass that along to the actress who played Carly — he did something similar to her while they were rehearsing a love scene in her dressing room.

He got carried away and did way too much touching, grinding and forced kissing. She actually slapped him. It was awful. We had to call a security company one day to keep the guy who played Lawrence, who was Carly’s real life husband, from tearing Roberto Bo limb from limb. He got a real bad bloody nose, though. Lawrence accidentally punched some other men from DAYS who were trying to break it up, so he was fired.”

Did she ever report it to the DAYS front office?

“She reported it to all the top producers at DAYS. They told her something like ‘Robert’s an old fashioned red blooded American male — he’s weak to beautiful women, that’s just Robert.’ It was embarrassing how flippant the men were. But when she threatened to quit the show, they got things in hand. Eventually she did quit the show. But the problem with trying to police that behavior at DAYS is that so many of the actors were having affairs. And they still are. I mean…it’s nothing to find out the actors are sleeping with each other in real life. That’s always went on a lot at DAYS. Bill and Susan even got married. The girl playing Jennifer was having an affair with one of the actors at Ken Corday’s other show — ‘Young and the Restless.’ We had a married actress on the show who was cheating in her dressing room with her co-star. It’s hard to police it, because so many actors like the attention from each other and they do bed-hop. Soaps are literally fuck farms. They really are. But they’re adults and we can’t stop them. Roberto Bo was having an affair with one of the teen actresses on the show, yeah, Sami’s best friend Jaime, she was underaged at the time— but hey — they got married and were married for many years. So you see why it’s so hard to make a judgment? It’s not always our business to say anything.”

What happened between Kristian Alfonso (Hope Brady) and this actor we’re calling Roberto Bo?

“It was nasty. Kristian Alfonso was the one who finally got him fired. And she did it more for the other women on the show than just herself. I don’t think it’s any secret that Lisa Rinna (Billie Reed) and Kristian couldn’t stand each other in real life. But that was one time when Kristian was the bigger person and she did everything to defend Rinna. Kristian wasn’t one to tolerate non-sense. She’s very much like Hope in real life. She got that creep fired for the sake of all the women on the show. Rivalry aside, the Sisterhood is what surfaced in the nick of time. And that’s what real women do. They put sisterhood first.”

Given the history of sexual harassment in daytime soaps and particularly on DAYS, how do you see this case with Ari Zucker turning out?

“There’s no way to know. But everyone at the show is rooting for Ari Zucker to get closure. I think it would be ideal if she got a settlement and then she and Ken patched things up and she came back to DAYS. That’s what I think we’re all secretly hoping for. We want Ari back home where she belongs. We’d also like to have Martha Madison back. The great Martha Madison. She was a joy to work with and she belongs on the show. We miss her terribly. We miss Camila Banus terribly — another casualty of Albert Alarr and his crap. Nadia Bjorlin as Chloe Lane — my god. The shit she went through and she’s another one who had no business being written off of DAYS. As for Ari Zucker — no one can play the role of Nicole like she can. She can’t be replaced as far as I’m concerned. And I despise the actress who’s trying to do that. I don’t see the viewers accepting as a recast Nicole. So I hope Ken Corday realizes that it’s time to be the bigger person and use his power to smooth everything out. Ken can make this whole thing go away. And I believe that deep down, he wants to.”

TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY

….BUT WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ARI ZUCKER’S CAREER?

Ari Zucker is one of the few soap actresses who is known outside of soaps. She has appeared in numerous prime time television movies and popular t.v. series.

She was famously caught up in a nationwide story when Donald Trump made his infamous “Grab ’em by the ____” comment just moments before stepping off the bus to be greeted by Ari Zucker at DAYS studio 4 sound stage where he was to do a cameo on the show.

Regarding the Trump incident, Ari Zucker told the Today Show: “I had no feelings about the incident but to be Professional.”

But with the advent of this lawsuit, a soap journalist insider (who asked not to be named) told us: “I think Ari Zucker’s career is over — at least in soaps. She might get some cash. She probably will. But Ken Corday doesn’t control the old boys network by himself. Even if he was to forgive her — lots of other big dicks in Hollywood will see her as a serious threat. They will put out the word not to use her. They’ll do everything to punish her for this just like they destroyed Rose McGowan for being outspoken. It doesn’t help that Ari’s also an older actress now. Sadly that really matters in this town.”

But ex-DAYS 2006 ghost head writer Kola Boof disagrees. Ms. Boof, who successfully persuaded hundreds of fans to assist her in a letter-writing campaign the first time actress Sal Stowers was let go from DAYS — is doing it again. Kola says she’s never met or spoken to (or written for) Ari Zucker. But Ms. Boof also says Nicole is one of her top favorite characters on the show and described Ari Zucker as: “Hands down — one of the best actresses on the show! And really one of the most talented actresses in television period.”

Kola Boof, who is Sudanese born (Naima Bint Harith) and speaks seven languages, became the only Black person to ever win Sweden’s Kavinna till Kavinna (Woman to Woman) Prize for Non-Fiction in 2007 when her article “I Am My Own Daughter” blossomed into a European sensation after it was published in Sweden’s top feminist magazine OTTAR. This bares mentioning as Boof is a known warrior for women’s rights (the author is vaginally infibulated, currently writes for Universal and Sony Pictures under various pseudonyms, has dated star actors like Djimon Hounsou and Gerard Butler — married not one but two millionaires (Simon Palacio and Jason Appelbaum) — and has been a strong advocate for protecting women’s bodies all over the world most of her career).

We received Boof’s email blast that went out to thousands of women across all the strata of entertainment passionately imploring us to believe and support Ari Zucker and any other soap actress who comes forward with such allegations. Full disclosure — it was Ms. Boof’s email blast and people’s reaction to it that motivated me to write this article.

In a brief telephone conversation Boof told me: “I predict that Ken will do the right thing and settle this. He’s not a monster, he’s not a bad man. When I was fired from DAYS by NBC over a senseless scandal that I had no control over, something that happened to me against my will when I was a fashion model living in North Africa in 1998— Ken Corday and Stephen Wyman fought very hard to keep me on the show. It ended up taking two weeks for NBC to legally fire me. Ken and Stephen didn’t have to do that. But they did it for integrity-sake. And when they couldn’t stop my firing — none of us got lawyers involved, and keep in mind Elaine, the legendary Derrick Bell at NY University was one of my closest friends as well as my lawyer, but before I could even think of a lawsuit— Ken, via Stephen Wyman, sent me a huge fat check and did other things to help me just because — it was the right thing to do. They knew Tide Detergent and Jiff Peanut Butter were dead wrong for demanding NBC fire me. In this situation with Albert Alarr, a truly despicable curb comic and mud-jerker, Ken knows damn well that Ari Zucker is telling the truth. He knows it. And the fans know it. Everybody knows it! And somewhere deep inside himself he needs to save the reputation of his parent’s creation and give Arianne Zucker a settlement — publicly apologize for what she endured — and hire her back to ‘Days of Our Lives’ so that we, the fans, can continue supporting and uplifting the soap that we’ve loved for all these years. Nicole Walker is a big part of that. And no one else can play Nicole Walker…but Ari Zucker. We, the fans, want Ari back on the show. That is what women want and that is why we are sending letters every single day to Corday Productions and to Universal and to Peacock. Letters matter. Not emails, not phone calls. Letters — are what matter to corporations. We want Ari Zucker back on ‘Days of Our Lives.’ That’s our girl.”

Lawyers for Ken Corday made the following statement about Ari Zucker’s lawsuit against “Days of Our Lives” shortly after she filed it: “The allegations in Ms. Zucker’s lawsuit are without merit. Complaints about Mr. Alarr’s on-set behavior were promptly investigated. Corday Productions fully cooperated with the impartial investigation and subsequently terminated Mr. Alarr.”

(Of course, Alarr was only fired after the situation became a national black eye on Corday’s reputation. He originally had no intention of firing Albert Alarr. Negative media attention and pressure from SAG-AFTRA forced him to do it.)

And Albert Alarr’s attorneys made this statement: “Zucker is trying to exploit vile stereotypes to denigrate and demean a Black man who was in a position of power. Well, enough is enough. Every day for decades, Albert worked with people who can — and will — testify about the falsity of Ms. Zucker’s mischaracterizations of him. We relish having a chance to share the truth and putting an end to her offensive claims once and for all.”

None of us know what the future holds. But we strongly believe in Ari Zucker as an actress, as a mom and as a fellow human being. We believe that she (and so many others mumbling the same things in the shadows) is speaking truth to power.

She deserves to be hired back to “Days of Our Lives.” She deserves to be compensated for her suffering. And we sincerely hope that fans of the show reading this article will write letters to Corday Productions, Universal (owner of NBC and Peacock) and to Peacock TV.

NOTE: This story originally appeared in Medium, Illumination and HERZ magazines.