Soap Star Joshua Morrow Reflects on ‘Pandemonium’ After SoCal Fires, Mourns His Community (EXCLUSIVE)
‘The Young and the Restless’ vet and his family have finally stopped couch surfing and found a home
As The Young and the Restless’ Nick Newman, soap opera star Joshua Morrow has over 30 years of juicy drama under his belt, but this January’s Southern California wildfires turned his real life into what he calls “an emotional rollercoaster.”
Unlike co-stars Eric Braden, Amelia Heinle and Melissa Claire Egan, Morrow saw his home spared—but the Palisades Fire left his beloved community destroyed and threw his world into chaos.
A month after the final evacuation order was lifted, Morrow sits down with Woman’s World to reflect on what he went through with his family—including son Crew Morrow, who plays Will Spencer on sister soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful—and where he found the strength to get through it all.
‘Y&R’ star Joshua Morrow recalls ‘pure pandemonium’ of SoCal fire evacuations
With Los Angeles still grappling with the aftermath of the wildfires, Joshua Morrow is quick to tell you that his family has not faced the same height of devastation as so many others. His home is smoke-damaged but standing, he was able to save photos and valuables, he has a steady job he loves at The Young and the Restless and they are safe.
“I lead a very blessed life,” Morrow insists—but like many Angelinos, he, his wife Tobe and their kids Charlie Jo, 12, Cash, 15, Crew, 19 and Cooper, 22, were evacuated with little warning and spent over a month couch surfing and hopping between short-term rentals.
“With thousands of families displaced, it was pure pandemonium,” Morrow recounts. “Mind you, we’re also six people, two dogs and a turtle. We’re not an easy family to help out and have in your space, because we take up a lot of bandwidth. It was a very stressful situation, and not knowing what we were going to do was pretty emotionally taxing.”
Palisades Fire reduced ‘Y&R’ star Joshua Morrow’s neighborhood to ‘piles of rubble’
Morrow got his first glimpse of the Palisades Fire’s devastation when he and one of his boys went back into their neighborhood a few days after being evacuated.
“We went and put out little mini fires that were still on the hillsides in our neighborhood, and we were just staring at piles of rubble,” he says. “My two very best friends in the world’s house is completely gone. All these homes that we know so well, gone. It’s nuts, and it’s a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to see.”
As The Young and the Restless icon Eric Braeden has shared, it was Morrow who delivered the crushing news that his home had not survived.
“l can’t tell you the parties I’ve gone to in his backyard,” Morrow shares. “He was so proud of his home and loved people celebrating and socializing in it. For it just to be gone is so difficult to wrap my head around.”
‘Y&R’ star Joshua Morrow mourns the Palisades community where he raised his family
After evacuation orders were lifted at the end of January and mudslides wiped out the street to their home this month, the Morrows faced a tough decision.
“You could go in and clean up the house that we lived in, but the neighborhood, it looks like bombs went off,” he says. “It’s just devastation everywhere you look. Obviously, they’ll go in and fix it, but it will never be what it was.
“The thing we lost that hurts is the community,” he continues. “My family began and was raised there. My kids played in those parks, went to those schools and yogurt shops. The best years of my life, without question, were formed there, and it’s just been wiped off the face of the earth. The memories I have, that’s all that’s left now.”
After almost six weeks of being uprooted, the Morrows found a new community to call home…for now.
“We’re in there for a couple years,” he says. “We don’t know when we’re going back… if we’re going back. It’s that painful. We don’t know what life is going to look like in a couple years. The unknowing is daunting and we feel sort of guilty about bailing on this community we love. But I’ve got a family to raise and now, we can begin to piece things back together.”
‘Y&R’ star Joshua Morrow called on his faith during the aftermath of the L.A. wildfires
To survive the months of chaos caused by this winter’s Southern California wildfires, Morrow has held tightly to his faith.
“It was a lot of prayer and honestly, it was a lot of belief in who we are as people and a family,” he tells Woman’s World. “I just tried to keep a positive attitude about it, and know that no matter where we ended up, my family was safe—and at the end of the day, that’s truly all I care about. So we’re good. We’re gonna be good. We’re going to make it work.”
Morrow is also grateful to have in his corner the woman he calls the “absolute backbone” of his family.
“My wife shouldered most of this—picking up the pieces, finding this new place, and keeping us all together—because that’s who she is,” he says of Tobe. “She runs her own company, and she’s a problem solver. She gets things done!
“There was also so much love and care and support being thrown our way,” adds The Young and the Restless star. “My show was just constantly checking in. ‘How can we help? Take all the time you need.’ It just goes to show you how much our show is a big, giant family.”
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