BREAKING NEWS: Drake Hogestyn’s Days of Our Lives Sons Open Up About His Final Days: ‘I Didn’t Want to Let Go’
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It’s no surprise that tributes have been pouring in for Days of Our Lives’ Drake Hogestyn since news broke that he passed away over the weekend after nearly four decades of playing John Black. No surprise, but, as Eric Martsolf (Brady) shared in an interview with Access Hollywood, “It’s been beautiful to see the amount of people coming out of the woodwork that loved this guy.”
That it has been. Martsolf was joined by Christopher Sean (Paul) for the on-camera interview, talking, for the first time since Hogestyn’s death, about their relationships that went beyond TV father and sons and their final days working with him. The fellas were understandably emotional recalling those final days with him, both having to pause from time to time as grief overwhelmed them.
Martsolf admitted that no one knew that hug between Brady and John would be Hogestyn’s last scene. “I could tell that he was going to fight hard,” he said of working together for those last episodes. “He did not want to leave the program. He would compose himself off camera and get right in there.”
And Sean shared how he found out about what Hogestyn was going through on his last return to the soap. He went to visit his Days dad in his dressing room. Sean knew something was wrong when Hogestyn, rather than telling one of his famous stories, admitted he wasn’t much up to talking. That’s when the Days vet filled him in.
“I just remember thinking, ‘No, no, no, no. Not him,’” Sean recalled, having to take a moment as the memory overwhelmed him. “After we finished filming, I didn’t want to leave his side. I kept following him around, you know?”
You can check out the emotional interview below.
Later, Sean shared, “I hugged him, and I just didn’t want to let go. He wouldn’t let me walk him to his room.”
That, Martsolf said, was because Hogestyn didn’t want to be a burden. “He was my TV dad,” Martsolf shared. “And I will miss him horribly, just like the rest of the world will.”
