‘General Hospital’ star Eva LaRue exiting as Natalia Ramirez

Natalia Rogers-Ramirez is bidding Port Charles farewell.

Eva LaRue is exiting General Hospital over a year after joining the show as Natalia, the disapproving and homophobic mother of Jacqueline Grace Lopez’s Blaze. Initially serving as a villain, LaRue’s character quickly earned the ire of the long-running soap’s viewers.

“Eva’s been a dear friend for years and I am so pleased we found an opportunity to work together,” said General Hospital executive producer Frank Valentini in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. “What originally was meant as a guest star arc turned into a longer and more satisfying arc, in thanks to Eva’s terrific work and chemistry with our cast. I was thrilled Eva was available to us in this extended role. I wish her all the best in her upcoming projects.”

LaRue herself echoed Valentini’s sentiments while announcing her departure in conversation with Soap Opera Digest.

“I was originally only supposed to be on the show for a couple of months and it ended up being a much longer run,” said the soap star, who originally rose to fame as Maria Santos Grey on All My Children.

She added that General Hospital “felt like home” thanks to the many other All My Children alums in the cast. 

News of LaRue’s departure comes after her character, Natalia, ingested a dangerous cocktail of pills and alcohol following news that she would be shipped off to Belize by Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard). This week will mark LaRue’s final episode of the show.

The actress, who made her GH debut in February 2024, noted that she knew her departure was approaching earlier this year.

“I started to feel it in January. They tried to rehabilitate my character and then all of a sudden, I have these scenes in January where, because Natalia had lied about her ex-husband and broken his trust, Sonny was like, ‘We can’t be friends anymore,'” she said. “And I thought, ‘Uh-oh, there we go,’ because that [relationship with Sonny] was kind of my character’s only lifeline.”

The actress also shared that it was an uphill battle to redeem Natalia, especially when it came to her love story with Sonny.

“People just weren’t buying it, because they just hated my character so much,” she said. “I was so vilified that no matter what [the writers] did, it just wasn’t a solid enough rehabilitation that they were gonna buy me with Sonny. And so when they finally let that idea go, I realized, ‘Okay, I’m probably not much longer for this world.'”

She added that playing Natalia posed a challenge after years as All My Children‘s Maria, a character both beloved and disliked during her tenure on the show.

“It was hard for me, actually — for me as a person,” she shared. “When you play a character like Maria Santos, love her or hate her, she was not ever meant to be a vilified character. And so it was hard from being that character, being a fan favorite, to being, like, literally hated.”

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She continued, “The GH fans couldn’t stand [Natalia]! So that was tough, because especially if you are accustomed to being rooted for, to be rooted against is not as comfortable.”

All that said, LaRue affirmed that it was a pleasure to join the show: “I had a blast at General Hospital. I loved being there and I had a lot of really great scenes and I loved everybody that I got to work with,” she said. “It was just an awesome experience, and I was really glad that I got to stay longer than I was supposed to.”

General Hospital airs weekdays on ABC.