‘The Bold And The Beautiful’ Brings Back Popular Actor In Shocking Reversal: “I Didn’t See This Coming, Quite Honestly”

SPOILER ALERT! This story contains a major plot point that was revealed on the April 29 episode of The Bold and the Beautiful.

EXCLUSIVE: Talk about a major do-over on the CBS daytime drama.

On the April 29 episode of The Bold and the Beautiful, fans learned that a character they loved to hate isn’t really dead after all.

The villainous Sheila Carter (Kimberlin Brown), who was supposedly killed off two months ago on the CBS daytime drama, is actually alive and well.

In an effort to bring back the popular Brown, head writer Brad Bell crafted a surprise comeback that involves a character named Sugar who first emerged on Bold‘s sister soap The Young and the Restless (where Brown originated Sheila in 1990). Sheila has a lookalike named Sugar (played, naturally, by Brown), so she was the woman who was killed by Steffy Forrester on Feb. 26. It was not, ahem, Sheila.

B&B has teased the possibility of a Sheila comeback for two weeks, with Deacon Sharpe (Sean Kanan) refusing to believe that his soulmate was dead. But fans may have had a hard time believing it would happen since Brown gave interviews saying she was leaving the sudser for good.

And from Feb. 6 (the date of her last taping) to March 18, Brown thought she was out of soap biz — until she got the call from Bell. In her first interview since returning to B&B, Brown talks to Deadline about her shocking return.

Kimberlin Brown as Sheila Carter. Matthew Taplinger/CBS

DEADLINE So, surprise!

KIMBERLIN BROWN I didn’t see this coming, quite honestly.

DEADLINE So who called you about coming back? Was it Brad Bell?

BROWN It was. He was very vague. He was like, ‘okay, I’m working on something. I don’t know what it is.’ And I said, okay. Talk about a roller coaster. The only thing I can think of is maybe it’s because of my fans, maybe everyone who was commenting, who made everything go viral. Brad does listen. He does pay attention, and in my opinion, I truly believe that my following and my fans and the people who have loved to hate Sheila all these years are responsible for me coming back.

DEADLINE Does Brad have a reputation of changing his mind?

BROWN I really don’t know. I get my scripts, I memorize my scripts, I figure out what I’m going to do with it that day to make it spicy and entertaining. And I go to work and go home and see my family and work on the next day. I’m not one of those actresses who are upstairs banging on the door. I let them do their job and I do my job. It’s not my place to question why decisions are made the way that they are. I’m just very, very happy that he chose to bring me back. It surprised me when he told me how he was doing this and he had to put a lot of research into the backstory to make this current story happen.

DEADLINE Maybe he thought he made a mistake and now he’s correcting it?

BROWN Either that or he had this in mind all along and just didn’t tell me about it! But I can’t see anybody doing anything that evil, however. That would be a Sheila moment.

DEADLINE What about the trust from fans? Do you have concerns about how this may land with them?

BROWN I really did because I truly thought I was gone. I gave the interviews knowing that I was gone and I was looking forward to the next chapter in my life and what might come out of it acting wise or otherwise. I even bought property in Montana. I’m expecting a grandchild in June. My son lives there and I’m building a home in Montana so I can be closer to my grandchild. I was looking to close down my home in Los Angeles that I rent for work. And thank God I got the call from Brad the week before I was moving out of my house in L.A. I truly thought this was a done deal. And like I said, it was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me, and I’m just so thankful that that roller coaster is back on the uphill swing.

Sheila is my happy place. I am one of those people that when I go to work, I go to work because I absolutely love what I’m doing every single day. Getting that call, asking me if I would consider coming back, was one of the best calls I’ve ever received in my life.

DEADLINE Let’s go back to the original discussion, when you first learned that Sheila was going to be killed off.

BROWN Brad called me upstairs to talk to me about what he had in mind for Sheila. It was a hard pill for me to swallow. It had been years of playing Sheila, and I consider her my baby, so to speak. And that was definitely not news I was anticipating or hoping to receive.

DEADLINE Was he quite blunt? Did he just straight up say, ‘we’re going to kill Sheila?’

BROWN Yeah, pretty much. I went to his office because he said we needed to talk, and I thought it was going to be storyline related because a lot of times he’ll call me up to let me know what I’m to expect and how he’d like me to play something. I thought that was the conversation I was going upstairs for. And when I walked into his office, he looked at me and went, ‘we’re killing off your character.’

DEADLINE Were you stunned silent? Or did you ask a bunch of questions and make statements like, ‘what are the fans going to say?‘

BROWN No, I’ve never been that actress. I’ve never been the one to question why they do what they do. I am more that person who is just so incredibly thankful that my career lasted as long as it did in daytime. It’s been an amazing ride. But when he told me, you could probably hear a pin drop. I just said okay. I was thankful that he was the one who told me, and that I didn’t hear it from whispers down the hallway. It speaks volumes when you have that kind of integrity, because I know there are other shows that don’t always do that. So I was very happy that he had the respect for me and my character to tell me firsthand.

DEADLINE. What did you think of the reaction to your character’s death?

BROWN I definitely saw the reaction. I even saw what happened with the ratings the following week. Fans were going crazy. They were blowing up. My social media and the stories that everybody wrote in regards to my exit were going viral. And that was amazing to me. It was a bittersweet thing for me here. I was being killed off the show, but here I had literally millions of people so upset about that fact and making it very verbal on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, and it was really neat for me to see. It was wonderful for me to see the effect that my character has had over these years of playing her. I’ve had people tell me before, ‘oh, you’re an icon of daytime.’ I’ve never considered myself anything like that. I’ve only considered myself truly blessed to have had the career that I have. And when all of this came out and the outpouring from the fans was so huge, I didn’t realize that I had that kind of effect on people. I didn’t realize that my character was maybe as popular as she is. I mean, there were posts and direct messages that were sent to me that literally drove me to tears.

DEADLINE So does this mean you are a series regular again?

BROWN I am happy to say that I have been asked to negotiate another contract.