‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ Star Thorsten Kaye Talks Wife Susan Haskell and Their Empty Nest (EXCLUSIVE)

While Ridge Forrester has been buoying between Brooke and Taylor for decades on The Bold and the Beautiful, his portrayer is a one-woman man—unless of course, you count his daughters! Here, back-to-back Daytime Emmy-winning lead actor Thorsten Kaye gets candid with Woman’s World about staring down the barrel of the empty nest and why he’s so grateful for his partner Susan Haskell—the two-time Daytime Emmy-winner who played iconic Marty Saybrooke when they were kids on One Life to Live.

Plus, the German-British-American soap star who was also on Port Charles, All My Children and Smash reflects on joining The Bold and the Beautiful over a decade ago and playing the epic Brooke/Ridge/Taylor triangle with leading ladies Katherine Kelly Lang and Rebecca Budig.

Daytime vet Kaye pulls back the curtain on life at ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’

Thorsten Kaye didn’t know what role he’d be playing when The Bold and the Beautiful showrunner Bradley Bell gave him a call back in 2013—but what he did know, he liked.

“I had finished Smash, which ended way too early, and was looking to do something else when Brad called me at home,” he recounts. “He said, ‘Would you be interested in doing something?’ I’d met him a couple of times, at parties and events, and he seemed like a good guy who really cares about his show—which makes a difference. So I thought, ‘Give it a shot,’ and next thing you know, you’re turning 60! How did that happen?” 

To be clear, Kaye is still only a young 58, and he’s been having a blast bringing Ridges’ drama to life, and not just because the role earned him two Emmys.

 “We’re in the trenches, together,” he says of the cast and crew of his show. “I’m not saying we put our life on the line here, but we’re given something that on paper seems impossible to do. This genre is tough! We can’t do it alone. We have to figure it out together, and it’s just great to be part of this team.”

Soap Opera Star Kaye reflects on his back-to-back Daytime Emmy wins

Kaye, who was born in Germany, raised in England, and attended graduate school in Detroit, got his start on the stage and initially turned down All My Children for an opportunity to play the titular role in Macbeth. He came back to that soap in 2004, but not before getting his break on One Life to Live in 1995 and then taking his character’s twin to Port Charles in 2000.

While many One Life to Live would agree Kaye delivered some Emmy-worthy performances way back when he was playing Patrick Thornhart, he confesses he took himself a bit too seriously to submit himself back then.

“I decided, because I was a young Shakespearean actor, that awards meant nothing,” Kaye shares with a chuckle, but as happens with age, his perspective shifted. And in 2023 and 2024, after decades in the business, he took home back-to-back Daytime Emmys for Lead Actor for playing Ridge.

“To get an award is really, really cool,” he admits. “It didn’t change anything, really, but it’s nice to look back and know some people thought that I deserved this.”

Soap hunk Kaye talks being a girl dad

Kaye is certainly honored to have won, but when we spoke to him on the red carpet on the big night, he revealed the highlight was getting to share the moment with his firstborn. 

With McKenna, 21, now living in New York City and Marlowe, 17, looking at colleges, this devoted dad recently got an unwanted reality check. For the first time, both his girls were too busy to join him and their mother for a day of boating. 

“It was just Susan and me on the boat, which I don’t think we’ve ever done before,” he marvels. “It’s nice… but it’s a change, right? Because the thing that you’re both there for, which is your kid, is no longer with you, so it was just the two of us… looking at each other.”

With an empty nest looming at his home in Connecticut, Kaye’s holding onto every moment with his girls—and will gladly suffer a red-eye to work in Los Angeles if it extends his weekends with them.  

“When my kids went to see ELO play at Madison Square Garden, of course I was going to take Marlowe on the train into the city and make sure they were set,” he shares as an example. “Then I had a nine o’clock flight that got in at one in the morning. I didn’t have time to go back to where I stay in L.A., so I just slept on John McCook’s couch at CBS for about an hour. And then we were back making the magic of The Bold and the Beautiful.

“This is why I look like this, I actually just turned 38,” Kaye adds with a laugh. “And it’s worth it.”  

Kaye explains his Emmy speech “thank you” to Susan Haskell

During awards season, Kaye made news for joking in his speech that he didn’t like or get award shows… until he’d won. While that moment perfectly reflects the actor’s sense of humor, we were more interested in hearing what he meant when he referenced all that the love of his life, Haskell, had “sacrificed.” 

 “She gave me two beautiful kids and many years of her life that should have been spent being an actor,” Kaye explains. “She’s really a wonderful actor. Right now, her life’s work is raising two amazing human beings, but I don’t think she SHOULD do more acting—she NEEDS to do more! 

“The tough thing about being a female in the world of television is that for some reason, people think that when you’re 28, it’s done,” he adds. “You don’t see 50-year-olds and 60-year-olds driving story. That’s changing now, and I’m glad.”

Kaye commends ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ for defying Hollywood’s agism

It bears mention that while Hollywood has a history of agism, that is not the case for Kaye’s show. After all, original The Bold and the Beautiful cast member Katherine Kelly Lang is not only fueling the story at 63 – her character Brooke just re-launched her sexy Bedroom line at Forrester.

“Kelly’s amazing,” Kaye marvels. “When they asked me to do a sex scene, I said, ‘I need a sweater and five towels.’ She’s very comfortable in who she is and in lingerie – and she works hard at it.

 “And on our show, it’s not just the women,” he continues. “John McCook is 80, and the opinion of his character (Eric) still matters. I like that. I think our boss is very smart to keep the characters who were in charge of this ship from the beginning in the fold.”

Kaye dishes on his leading ladies and the Brooke/Ridge/Taylor triangle

While he hasn’t been on screen since the start like McCook and Lang, Kaye is embedded in a love triangle that goes back to the beginning of The Bold and the Beautiful and remains strong as ever, today.

“What makes it work is that these two women are so completely different, and they access a different part of this man,” Kaye says of Brooke and Taylor, but when asked what’s so great about the man they keep fighting over, he hedges. “Ridge and Thorsten are so different, so it’s hard for me to tell.”

With Taylor recast Rebecca Budig now getting into the drama, Kaye reveals he’s tickled to be reunited with one of his old soap pals after 20 years apart.

“We crossed on All My Children, but big Cameron Matheson was always in the way and she’s tiny, so I never got to see her,” he cracks, referencing the General Hospital actor who once played Ryan to Budig’s Greenlee. “It’s been 20 years, which is amazing. And it’s just really nice that she’s here now. We’re having fun.”

‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ star Kaye looks to the future

With the Brooke/Ridge/Taylor triangle taking a serious turn this week on The Bold and the Beautiful, Kaye, who wrote A Solid Wheel of Colored Ribbons, is also working on his second children’s book – and Budig may be the person to help him find an illustrator. 

His focus right now, however, is on bringing the drama to The Bold and the Beautiful, enjoying his role as a hands-on girl dad for as long as possible… and figuring out what this next stage of life looks like for him and Haskell.

“It’s so much fun being a dad,” Kaye tells Woman’s World. “I’ve never thought of it as a duty, and not being needed in that way anymore, it’s gonna be really hard.”

With the empty nest looming, this The Bold and the Beautiful star may not be ready to see his girls go, but he IS ready to see his beautiful Daytime Emmy-winning leading lady Susan Haskell back where she belongs…on the screen!