Young & Restless’ Christel Khalil Reveals the Devastating Reason She Nearly Quit
Christel Khalil has been a household name to viewers of The Young and the Restless since she took over the role of Lily in 2002.
Though she briefly left in 2006, the CBS soap vet is most recognized for her Genoa City character and, at this point, we couldn’t imagine anyone else playing Malcolm and Dru’s daughter. However, someone else could be in the role had Khalil quit acting, which she almost did.
The actress recently appeared on the Soapy podcast with fellow castmate Greg Rikaart (Kevin, Days of Our Lives’ Leo) and The Bold and the Beautiful’s Rebecca Budig (Taylor) to talk about how a bad experience almost made her walk away from acting at 14 years old.
Having auditioned for various Disney projects, when she had the chance to land a role as the lead in That’s So Raven, Khalil went for it but lost it to Raven-Symoné.
“I was just so devastated because for the network call there were 20 people in the room watching me and I’ve always had such performance anxiety and I just completely bombed the audition,” Khalil explained. “It was terrible so I was just devastated and I was actually going to quit acting.” Then things changed…
“I then got the final call for The Young and the Restless and I wasn’t going to go because I was like, you know what, I’m done,” she stated, not wanting to do it anymore. Instead, she just wanted to hang out with her friend and was still “devastated” from losing the Disney role. But someone changed her mind…
“My brother, who is seven years older than me, he quit acting the same age that I was at that time and he was like, ‘Christel, I promise you, I actually really regret quitting,’ [and] he’s like, ‘Just go on this audition and if you don’t get it, you can quit but if you just go…’ and I was like, fine, if I don’t get it I’m done.”
Watch the clip, posted on Isaac Webster’s Instagram…
Well, we don’t know about you but we’re glad she went for it — and got it — because a Genoa City without Khalil’s Lily would be devastating for her fans.
Join us as we take a look back at how Lily went from taking pictures to taking charge by opening up the photo gallery below.
