Kimberly McCullough Shares Beautiful Memories of Tyler Christopher
Sadly, the cast of GENERAL HOSPITAL has lost some of its beloved cast members this year, including Tyler Christopher, who recently passed away on Oct. 31. Kimberly McCullough, who joined the cast of the ABC soap back in 1985 as Robin Scorpio, shared her thoughts on losing her friend in a beautiful series of Instagram Stories. Unfortunately, Stories only last a day, so fans can no longer hear her beautiful sentiments in her own voice, but they can at least read her heartfelt words.
“I want to talk about Tyler Christopher, the person,” McCullough began as her camera moved slowly down a scenic path. “If you are a fan of his or even if you knew him personally, go on a walk with me. I first met Tyler when I was about 16 and as some of you may know, Nikolas and Robin had a friendship, a very sweet friendship, but so did Kimberly and Tyler. We were a part of this acting class where I met a lot of my really good friends and we were also part of a friend group.
“Once, when I was going through a breakup, it was a really hard time in my life,” she continued. “I was extremely lonely and he apologized to me for not being there for me and he said, ‘I hope you’ll forgive me.’ It made me feel like I wasn’t crazy, that I was loved, and that Tyler really was my friend. But that was the kind of friendship we had: Tyler was like a big brother to me and things were never romantic between us, which was great. It made our friendship even that much sweeter and simpler.”
After leaving GH, McCullough moved behind the camera, pursuing her goal of becoming a director, something she said Christopher fully supported her in. “He could see it as clearly as I could,” she recalled. “He would always say, ‘Yeah, go go go, keep going. I know you’re going to do it.’ He even went so far as to put me up in his house in Austin, TX, while we were shooting a TV show. I was shadowing on an ABC Family show, and he totally took care of me while I was there. He would even make coffee in the morning before he’d go to work and leave me a little note like ‘See you at work.’ He was just thoughtful.”
The Daytime Emmy winner also shared a story about a time when Finola Hughes (Anna) came up to her on set one day after working with Christopher marveling at how funny he was. “She was like, ‘Tyler is so clever; he just says this stuff under his breath and so if you’re not listening very carefully, you’ll miss it.’” she revealed. “I was like, ‘I know, I know, no one knows he is a freaking stand-up comedian in the body of a prince.’ Tyler was like, so funny. He would tell these stories and my stomach would hurt so bad. I would cry like those cartoons where the tears shoot out of your eyes.”
As she brought her thoughtful walk to a close, McCullough shared: “I guess my point to all of this is to tell you that even though Tyler had his own struggles, he found a way to be all these things for me as a friend. He found a way to be empathetic, generous, and had a way of just making me laugh like no one else could. We shared a love of hip hop, we shared a love of dogs, we shared a love of finding the emotional truths in our craft. Even though I am super sad today, I am so grateful I got to know someone like that and grateful that I got to have a good friend for over 30 years. Rest in peace, man.”
