Arianne Zucker Discusses 'Days Of Our Lives' Exit & Being the Subject of That Leaked Trump Audio
Arianne Zucker, who has played Days of Our Lives star Nicole Walker on the series since 1998, is exiting the series in July and she’s speaking out a bit about her final episode.
If you don’t know, the 49-year-old actress has been involved in a lawsuit, where she is suing Corday Production Inc., executive producer Ken Corday and former executive producer Albert Alarr, claiming Alarr sexually harassed her and other female employees on the show. She says she was subjected to nonconsensual sexual touching and sexually harassing comments during his employment, claiming he would frequently pull her close to his chest and make sexual moans while doing so.
In October, Arianne said her contract was running out and she attempted to negotiate with Corday Productions, who gave her a “take it or leave it” offer and wouldn’t negotiate in “good faith.” Her old contract expired in January 2024, which she says means she was essentially fired from her job.
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On the “Miss Understood” podcast, Arianne said her last episode will air on July 29 on Peacock. She would not reveal how she exits, but did clarify that her character does not die.
She shared, “I will not say how I leave the show. I do respect that we don’t want to share that. We want the fans to be excited and enticed. Like I said, I’ve got a great group of women who are really standing up for [my] saying it’s not okay how you treat people there. I’ve done fan events recently, and how wonderful they are about sharing their personal stories, their personal trauma about something like this that happened to them at their place of work.”
She also spoke about the infamous Access Hollywood tape between Donald Trump and Billy Bush. If you don’t remember, back in 2016 ahead of the election, audio was leaked from a inappropriate conversation between Trump and Bush. Arianne was one of the women who was talked about during the conversation.
About the controversy, she shared, “He made a comment, I guess, about my legs and so did Billy Bush. Everybody has spoken poorly about somebody in their lifetime. I don’t care who you are, everybody has, it’s just people get caught on camera doing it. Unfortunately, that happens all the time. And if you’ve ever gone to a fraternity party, the things happen. So [when she later read the taped comments] I’m going, ‘sounds like something my fraternity guys I know would say.’ But I just didn’t see it in the way that people were seeing it.”
She added, “I felt attacked by the media because I knew all they wanted. I mean, the biggest thing was to get Trump off the ballot. I was like, that is not my job.”
“I don’t really like talking politics, but as far as the way he speaks, could he do a better job of it? Absolutely,” she continued. “I think there are policies that were great that he did. I’m sure our pockets felt a little bit better four years ago than they do now. I know mine did. And so I think there were things … without getting too much into that … that I felt were really great. I am not going to judge the system. I think people can probably hear the way I think by the things that I’m saying, but I’m very in the middle of what’s going on in this country. And I mean, if this is the conversation we want to have, I just feel like there is weaponization on both sides.”
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