Natalia Ramirez is heading out of Port Charles. Deadline has confirmed that Eva LaRue is leaving General Hospital after her character is seen popping pills and throwing back booze in the June 30 episode.
LaRue, who previously played neurologist Dr. Maria Santos Grey on All My Children from 1993 to 2011, joined GH in February of 2024 as Blaze’s mom, Natalia. LaRue will be phased out this week.
“I was originally only supposed to be on the show for a couple of months,” LaRue told Soap Opera Digest. “And it ended up being a much longer run, which was great — and really fun because there are so many All My Children actors there and so it felt like home.”
Ramirez said she began to sense that her character wasn’t long for Port Charles in January. “They tried to rehabilitate my character and then all of a sudden, I have these scenes where, because Natalia had lied about her ex-husband and broken his trust, Sonny was like, ‘We can’t be friends anymore,’” she told Soap Opera Digest. “And I thought, ‘Uh-oh, there we go,’ because that [relationship with Sonny] was kind of my character’s only lifeline.”
LaRue won her first daytime Emmy in 2020 for guesting as Celeste Rosales on CBS’ The Young and the Restless. She also played Natalia Boa Vista on CSI: Miami from 2005 to 2012. LaRue got her start in daytime soaps back in 1988 on Santa Barbara.
