General Hospital star Kelly Monaco's character 'Sam' replaced as fans fume 'this is awful'

Kelly Monaco's character on General Hospital is to be replaced .

The actress played Sam McCall on the soap show for 21 years starting in 2003, but it as first reported that Kelly was leaving the show after the network decided to "terminate her character." It was said that her character Sam was set to be killed off but it looks like the network changed its mind .

ABC has not put out a statement about the character but Kelly did reveal that the reason for her leaving was due to "taking the cut," implying she was part of a budget cut.

• General Hospital's Kelly Monaco to have taken 'the cut' after production budget change

• General Hospital fans protest outside ABC studios to get Kelly Monaco back on show after axe

Kelly will be replaced by Lindsay Hartley the week of September 16. Viewers at home saw the replacement on the September 16 episode and many were not happy to see the new Sam. Lindsay's first episode on the ABC show was her speaking to Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst).

One person on X, formerly known as Twitter, wrote: "This is AWFUL. Lindsay Hartley is a good actress but this is NOT Sam or how Sam would react or interact with her son. I felt nothing from this scene except uncomfortableness." Another person wrote: "I'm so sad to see this other actress playing Sam because we already have so few days left to see Kelly Monaco play Sam." A third person wrote: "Sorry #GeneralHospital no disrespect to this actress whose just doing her job, but she is not Sam. She is not and will never be @kellymonaco1." A fourth wrote: "Again scenes with Sam and it’s not KM. Idk why but it’s frustrating since they want to kill Sam off. We barely get to see KM as it is and now when Sam does have scenes she’s played by another actress. (No disrespect to LH)."

Viewers then saw Sam sit behind Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn), who pleased not guilty for the murder of Agent Cates. Beside her were Kristina (Kate Mansi) and Molly (Kristen Vaganos).

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