Camila Banus Explains Why She Left DAYS OF OUR LIVES
After 13 years of playing Gabi Hernandez, Camila Banus has left DAYS OF OUR LIVES, her final episode airing on Nov. 9. She joined the cast of the soap back in 2010, taking over from Gabriela Rodriguez, who had introduced the character a year earlier. Although Banus exited in June 2014, she returned in September 2015 and took one more brief break in the summer of 2020. Then, in May 2023, the actress announced that she had decided to leave DAYS, filming her final episode on April 28.
In an essay she penned for Today explaining her move, Banus called it “a difficult decision” because it was a job she had loved for so long. “When I told my mom, sister, and husband — who I call my ‘tripod’ — I was thinking of leaving the show, they understood. They’d seen me come home from work crying because I couldn’t shake off something bad that had happened to Gabi. They’d seen me memorizing 60 pages a day and feeling like my head was going to explode. Their support is monumental and it’s what makes me feel safe enough to take this risk.
“I did it for me and the dreams that surpassed DAYS,” she added. “I did it for my family: past, present, and future. I did it for my dad, in honor of the person he thought I could be — but never could see me become.”
Soon after joining the cast of DAYS, Banus’s father took his own life and she bottled up her feelings about it for many years before finally coming to terms with the loss. “I had always spoken to my dad about my dreams,” she explained. “He knew my ultimate goal is to create amazing stories and cultivate characters — to be on the big screen. That was part of why I walked away. He didn’t stay to see his dreams realized — the depression took over. I need to reach mine for him, and me, and our family.
“DAYS was undeniably a dream job,” Banus concluded. “But I hope it’s the first of many dream jobs. I want to leave a legacy for my family, honoring the sacrifices that my Cuban immigrant parents made for me so that I could pursue those dreams. Now, in Florida, when I look at the water, I think of my dad. I feel his embrace. And I know: He would be so proud of me.”
