Stephanie Johnson on DAYS OF OUR LIVES — Everything You Need to Know

Stephanie Johnson had quite a life on DAYS OF OUR LIVES starting with being abducted as an infant! The character was born in 1990 and played by twins for a couple of years. In 2006, Stephanie was aged into a young woman with Shayna Rose playing her. But in 2007, the role was recast with Shelley Hennig, who portrayed Stephanie until 2011. She did pop back into Salem in 2017, but when the character returned in 2022, the role was being played by Abigail Klein. First on BEYOND SALEM and then on DAYS proper!

The daughter of Steve Johnson and Kayla Brady, Stephanie was kidnapped by her nanny, Sheila, but was later rescued in Australia. Following Steve’s death, Kayla took Stephanie and moved to Los Angeles. In 2006, Stephanie returned to Salem with her mother now an adult, and also a famous race car driver. She had a brief relationship with Max Brady before leaving town again.

After Steve was revealed to be alive, Stephanie came home again and began dating Jeremy Horton. She convinced Max and Chelsea Brady to invest in his business, but it turned out to be a counterfeit clothing smuggling operation. Max lost all his money but developed feelings for Stephanie, though she remained committed to Jeremy. After Jeremy left town to avoid the police, Stephanie tried to avoid her feelings for Max by dating Ford Decker, but the cad ended up drugging her drink and raping her!

Stephanie struggled to deal with her rape and when Ford continued to drug and rape other women on campus, she enlisted her sorority sisters to drug him and teach him a lesson. But in his out-of-it state, Ford tried to rape Chelsea and ended up falling down the stairs to his death. Terrified, Stephanie convinced everyone they should hide the body instead of calling the police. Although the truth later came out, Stephanie was not charged.

During this difficult time, Stephanie grew extremely close to Max and even helped him locate his sister, Melanie, in France. However, once Melanie was in Salem, the two women did not get along at all! When Stephanie turned Melanie in to the cops for a crime she’d confessed to, Max was furious and split up with her. Taking a job as an intern at Titan, Stephanie began working with Philip Kiriakis and sparks flew. Although Melanie tried stealing Philip for herself, he only had eyes for Stephanie. She accepted his marriage proposal, but soon found herself abducted as a pawn in the DiMera/Kiriakis feud. 

Though Stephanie was rescued, she continued to have PTSD from her abduction that strained her relationship with Philip and when he refused to cut ties to his family, she dumped him. Next, she began seeing Nathan Horton, but he clearly still had feelings for his ex, Melanie, so Stephanie was relieved when Melanie married Philip. Learning that Philip was the father of Chloe Lane’s baby, Stephanie tried to cover up the secret to prevent Melanie from divorcing him and going back to Nathan. However, when the secret came out, Nathan was so angry at Stephanie’s lies that he broke up with her anyway.

Stephanie wasn’t seen for a while, though it was later mentioned that she’d left town. In 2017, she returned to Salem to attend the remarriage of her parents, Steve and Kayla, but didn’t stay long. In 2022, Steve and Kayla went to Seattle to visit Tripp, Stephanie, and Joey but their happy reunion was marred when a bomb went off and Stephanie was badly injured. Thankfully, she recovered and returned to Salem sooner than she’d originally planned!

Sonny Kiriakis convinced Stephanie to do PR for Titan, but she was wary of working with Alex Kiriakis, who had immediately become smitten with her and came on way too strong. She insisted they keep their relationship strictly personal and tried to make it work. After taking on too much work by also managing Paulina Price’s campaign for governor, Stephanie agreed to hire Chad DiMera to help out. Things got awkward, though, when they shared a kiss and then nearly had sex! Later, helping Paulina recover blackmail material from Sloan brought Stephanie closer to Alex again. She started warming up to the guy and they also shared a kiss.

Stay tuned to see what happens next!