Long-running soap introduces 1st gay couple

Since 1987, the daytime drama "The Bold and the Beautiful" has kept viewers enthralled with its tales of the glamourous life within the Los Angeles fashion industry. The show, which airs on CBS, has always featured beautiful people wearing fashionable clothes and has, at times, been quite progressive. In 2013, “Bold and Beautiful” writers introduced a character named Maya Avant (Karla Mosley) to the canvas. Maya, as it turned out, was transgender. And while Mosley wasn't trans, trans actor Scott Turner Schofield played Maya's trans mentor Nick.

But missing from “The Bold and Beautiful" storylines were gay characters, a glaring omission given the number of gay men who work in fashion. All that has changed with the recent introduction of Remy and Deke, the show's first gay male couple.

Deke has been on the show for a number of years played by several actors at different ages. Now played by Harrison Cone, Deke has come out as a gay man and has begun dating Remy (Christian Weissmann), a character who was introduced in November 2024. Remy has quite a history. When viewers first met him, he was a stalker, creating deepfake nudes of Electra Forrester (Laneya Grace), a young woman he was obsessed with. Deke had no idea of Remy's past and the two fell deeply in love.

But Remy's past came back to haunt him. In one recent episode Deke introduces his new boyfriend to his friends, a circle of people that includes Electra. They are shocked to see who Deke's boyfriend is and they tell Deke what Remy did. Deke is horrified. Remy tearfully begs for forgiveness and swears that he has changed.

In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Weissmann, who is queer, spoke about what might be coming next for Remy and Deke.

"Remy is not known for the best things," Weissmann said. "He has gone through some seriously tough moments that have manifested into hurting the people he cares about, but he's on the mend, I would say."

Weissmann described Remy as a lost individual during the character's early days on the show. He moved across the country in order to relive a one-sided fantasy he had with his best friend. He was struggling emotionally not just with his sexuality but with his mental health. But after the incident of stalking Electra, he took some time for himself.

"That was the straw that broke the camel's back for him to usher in a new era for himself," Weissmann said. "And he began to look at himself truthfully in the mirror."

Weissmann added that while Remy's sexuality was at first not made clear to the audience, it was clear to him and to the show's writers that there was more going on than meets the eye. He was playing more than just a crazy stalker. Remy had a lot of things going on internally that needed to be unpacked.

"Getting to do that as an actor was such an amazing experience because there's so much to play," he said. "Every day you're getting new scripts, and it's like, oh my God, I'm doing this now, that's been one of the most exciting things I've gotten to do in my career."

It's hard not to notice the terrific chemistry between Weissmann and Cone when they're onscreen together. Weissmann recalled that when the two actors first met, they had a camaraderie and a connection. As their work together on the show progressed, they made a real effort to get to know one another, spending time together, getting lunch and hanging out.

"I'm really lucky that all the younger people in the cast have built a friends group," said Weissmann. "We go out and get dinner, and go get drinks. We have so much fun working together but then also hanging out together outside of work. Building that connection, I think, really contributed to our onscreen chemistry, for sure."

Weissmann said that he couldn't give away too many spoilers about what may be coming up for Remy and Deke, but he did say that their relationship was going to be put to the test and that they were going to see how strong their love really is.

"I spent a lot of time working on those episodes and thinking about how Remy has come into himself as an individual, his connection with Deke, and what he wants out of it," he said. "And most importantly, how he gets out of his own way as an openly queer person. He spent so much of his young adult life putting his foot in his mouth, doing things impulsively and not thinking about what's best for him long term. With this storyline he's really thinking about where he wants to be in his life and how he goes after that."

The response from the audience has been uniformly positive. Weissmann has heard from older gay men who have been watching the show for 30 years and were waiting for a gay character to come on. He's also heard from younger people who watch the show with their mothers and tell him that the storyline sparked a conversation. He's delighted to be making people feel seen.

"Representation is more important than ever right now," he said. "The world is at war against LGBTQ people and having a healthy, complex, queer relationship on daytime television is more vital than ever. And I am so grateful that I get to tell that story as an authentically queer person. Hopefully, people can see that and be like wow, these individuals are just as much deserving of love as we are."

Weissmann, 25, grew up in the Midwest in a religious background.

"I definitely had a lot of baggage going into my teenage life and my young adulthood," he said. "So, it took me some time for sure to come to terms with who I was and to be able to say my sexuality out loud. It wasn't until the height of the pandemic in 2020 when I was fully alone in the four walls of my room, I was like, OK, I really got to figure out who I am because life is too short and I want to live authentically as myself."

In addition to acting, Weissmann is a published poet. His book of poems is called "Her, Him and I," and in the book he wrote about his first two romantic relationships and about his relationship with himself.

"There are a couple of other romantic relationships that have snuck in there as well," he said. "My first relationship with a guy and my first relationship with a woman. The book was written over four years, so there were other things that snuck in as well. It's just about figuring out who you are as a late teen, early twenty-something, and understanding how to separate your self-worth and another individual giving you that sort of validation. It's kind of like my journey to independence."

But acting remains his first love, and his work on "The Bold and the Beautiful" has definitely been noticed. He recently received his first Emmy nomination in the outstanding emerging talent category for the 2025 Daytime Emmys. And though he didn't win (the award went to his B&B co-star Lisa Yamada) he feels that it was a tremendous honor to have been nominated.

"Oh my God, I will never forget the 6 a.m. wake-up of when I got that news," he said. "It was the best day of my life, it was so exciting. Being on a show like this and getting to really sink my teeth into Remy and his psyche and getting that sort of recognition was the most rewarding thing that could have happened. I'm pumped."

“The Bold and the Beautiful” airs weekdays at 12:30 p.m. on KPIX-TV. It also streams on Paramount Plus. For more information about Christian Weissmann, visit his website, christianweissmann.com.