General Hospital fans love Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard). And right now he is edging into his latest romance with Natalia Rogers-Ramirez (Eva LaRue). And she obviously had the last name Sidwell at some point. But there’s a whole pile of fans who really hate them together. But let’s face it, she’s not the worst woman Sonny’s ever been with. It’s Belynda from Soap Dirt, and we’re going to talk about Sonny’s absolute worst romances. Ranked from pretty bad to absolutely terrible.
If you are a longtime watcher, you know Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) has had tons of romances over the last three decades. He had a few epic loves, you know, Carly Corinthos (formerly played by Sarah Joy Brown) and Brenda Barrett (Vanessa Marcil), they spring to mind. But mostly, Sonny seems to have truly terrible taste in romantic partners. And so there’s seven ladies that stand out. I think will go down in history as some of Sonny’s worst pairings. We’re going to count down from number seven. A pairing that polarized fans, down to number one. Which is I think without a shred of doubt, the absolute worst romance Sonny has ever had on General Hospital. And we’ll see if you agree with us on just how truly, truly terrible that one is. All right, let’s dive in.
Ranking Sonny Corinthos’s Worst Romances: A General Hospital Retrospective
Number seven: Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) with Nina Reeves (Cynthia Watros). We got to start with, you know, that recent romance. And it initially came out of left field. So, it had fans heavily divided from the start. People either loved or hated Sonny with Nina Reeves. There really wasn’t a middle ground in the fandom. Some thought it was a breath of fresh air. Others saw a travesty they wanted to see go down in flames.
Because Sonny had amnesia, and Nina knew exactly who he was. And his family thought he was dead. So they were mourning him. It was very problematic. Plus, you know, Nina intended to tell Carly. But when she was nasty to her on the phone, well, Nina decided to keep the secret. And of course, that rubbed fans the wrong way. Amnesiac Sonny, AKA Mike, fell hard for Nina. He thought he had met her recently. And when he got back his memories, obviously Sonny was very angry at Nina. But then he went ahead, he divorced Carly and married Nina anyway. And they might still be married if not for that SEC call.
General Hospital: Stockholm Sonny?
So, some fans felt like Sonny had kind of a Stockholm syndrome thing with Nina because she kept him away from his family, just with her. But also, you know, Sonny felt a very deep attachment to her, couldn’t let her go. He even divorced Carly to be with Nina. And this pairing was just really divisive among fans. Some said it was the worst thing ever, and they raged that Sonny should have been back with Carly, and others really liked him with Nina and still want them to reunite to this day. I actually liked them together, but I know lots of people don’t, so that’s why she is on our worst romantic pairing list, but far from the very worst.
The Problematic Pairing of Sonny and Margaux Dawson
Number six, the second terrible ship with Sonny that we want to talk about is Margaux Dawson. Do you remember her? Many fans consider her one of Sonny’s absolute worst relationships, but for me, it wasn’t the worst, it was just bad. I do love the actress that played her, Elizabeth Hendrickson. She’s over on Y&R on recurring. But I will say this was pretty much my least favorite character that she has ever played.
Margaux popped up as the Port Charles DA who desperately wanted to put him behind bars for killing her father decades earlier. But it turns out Sonny was not to blame for his death. Still, Margaux was bent on putting him behind bars no matter what the cost was going to be. But then, because Sonny has naughty bits that are basically a magnet to any woman in Port Charles, Margaux hit the sheets with him. Fan opinion was that the whole thing with him dating and shagging the DA was stupid and awkward, and her flipping so fast from hating him to being his lover was nonsensical. Plus, their chemistry was less than stellar, not a spark in sight. I think fan opinion killed this pair, and then Margaux rolled out of Sonny’s bed and slunk out of town, never to be seen again.
When Law Enforcement and Love Collide: Sonny’s Entanglement with Hannah Scott
Number five on our countdown list: Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) and Hannah Scott. Oh my gosh, as if the Teflon Don getting with a district attorney wasn’t bad enough, you know, Sonny has also in the past been involved with law enforcement ladies like FBI agent Hannah Scott. She went undercover, and it wasn’t long until the federal agent seduced Sonny and got under his covers. She was supposed to be getting the goods to prosecute him, and then instead she fell for him. It was predictable and almost painful to watch as Sonny fell for her, too.
One of the only good things about Hannah was that GH brought in A. Martinez to play her dad, Roy Duca, and he is a treat as always. Sonny figured out she was a Fed, tossed her out, but just like those cowboys in Brokeback Mountain, Hannah just couldn’t quit him. She kept begging for another spin on Sonny’s love machine, but he never would forgive her. And in the end, Hannah and her drama scored Sonny a pardon from the FBI, but fans just found this romance utterly unpardonable, and they really disliked it. Now, while Sonny’s pairing with Hannah turned out to be junk, her time on GH was not a total bust. The actress who played her, Lisa Voltaggio, met her future husband, Jonathan Jackson, behind the scenes, AKA the Lucky Spencer (Jonathan Jackson) actor. They’ve been married since 2002, and they have three kids together. That’s a good romantic pairing.
Reese Marshall: Another Federal Agent Falls for Sonny’s Charms
All right, number four on the list, five years after the Hannah Scott debacle, another bad romance showed us that Sonny didn’t learn his lesson about ladies with a badge, because then he tangled with Reese Marshall, another female federal agent who couldn’t fight the magnetic attraction of Sonny’s man parts. Reese went from taking down Sonny to him taking her to bed. But then she betrayed him when she shagged his brother, Ric Lansing (Rick Hearst).
For quite a while, Reese and Ric kept their dirty secret hidden, but eventually Sonny found out and tossed her to the curb. And to add injury to insult, she got in a train crash, punctured a lung, and died. That was a pairing fans will not miss, and there weren’t that many people sad to see Reese go.
Claudia Zacchara: A Mob Marriage of Convenience Gone Wrong
Number three on our countdown, stepping away from hot chicks with guns and badges, we go in another direction for this next romantic disaster. Fans were really excited when they heard Sarah Joy Brown, the very first actress to play Carly, was coming back to GH in a sizzling new role. She was a brunette bombshell lady mobster Claudia Zacchara.
When she first showed up, she had a one-night stand with Sonny, and then she later tangled with his brother, Ric Lansing (Rick Hearst), who was totally smitten with her, by the way. She also hooked up with Ric’s dad when she was just a teenager, so just kind of ew. She and Sonny had a mob marriage of convenience to consolidate power, and then she started falling for Sonny, which was kind of awkward because she had shot his son Michael Corinthos (Chad Duell), trying to kill somebody else. And it got worse when Claudia intentionally got herself pregnant as an insurance policy against Sonny killing her, kind of like the Ava/Avery vibe. But then she lost the baby. Sonny exposed her role in Michael’s shooting in public, and it was a mess.
The good news was Sonny didn’t have to go to the legal expense to divorce her because Claudia kidnapped Carly, tried to steal baby Josslyn (Eden McCoy), and Michael cracked his stepmother in the head and killed her. And like a good friend, Jason Morgan (Steve Burton) buried her corpse in the woods. Fans absolutely cheered her death and the end of the storyline. And what really stinks is Sarah Brown is a great actress, but her hiring went off the rails because right after she came on board, the writers’ strike hit. That was like 2008, and in the end, the scab writers just didn’t do her justice, and this was a very bad Sonny pairing, one of his worst.
Emily Quartermaine: A Sweet and Innocent Romance That Never Quite Worked
Number two on our countdown, from lady agents to a DA to a female mob boss, where do you go from there rating Sonny’s bad road romances? Well, you date your mob enforcer best friend Jason Morgan‘s (Steve Burton) very sweet and innocent adoptive sister, Emily Quartermaine (played by Amber Tamblyn the role originator). This pairing was so bad because she was so good. While Carly was in a psychiatric hospital, Emily was helping Sonny out with the kids. She had been raped, which was terrible, and then her husband, Nikolas Cassadine (Tyler Christopher), cheated on her, you know, made things so much worse.
So Emily moved into Sonny’s place while processing her trauma and heartbreak and helping him out. And that’s the only reason I can think that sweet Emily would fall for mobster Sonny, just proximity, just sharing a roof. The age gap was awkward, the fact they had nothing in common made it worse, her being Jason’s sister was bad news, and it all felt very forced to most fans, to me as well. It was like, okay, well, she’s not with Nikolas right now, and Carly’s locked up, so let’s just throw this against the wall and see if it sticks. It didn’t stick, it just stank.
So fans pretty much hated this pairing across the board, you know, and then Sonny went into a mental health spiral. He was diagnosed with bipolar and dumped Emily because he thought it was all too much for her. She wound up back with Nikolas, which saved her from this ill-conceived Sonny romance, which was one of his worst. Unfortunately, the text message killer got her and took her life.
The Most Offensive and Horrific: Sonny’s Relationship with Karen Wexler
All right, here it is, the one you’ve been waiting for. With all the other ladies we mentioned, you may wonder what possible romance of Sonny is worse than this [the] others on the list. So this young lady was actually one of his first romances. I think actually his very first romantic partner when Maurice Benard was added to the cast of General Hospital way back in the early 1990s. And it definitely looks like General Hospital didn’t plan on him staying three decades. Because when they brought him in, you know, Sonny was a true villain at first. He was skeevy and bad. And that’s where this romance happens.
So in case you’ve not figured out who I’m talking about, it’s Karen Wexler (Cheryl Richardson). If you don’t remember her from way back then, you should definitely remember her from when Jagger Cates (Adam Harrington) talked about her as part of his vendetta against Sonny. And you know, when Maurice Benard first came on, he was introduced as a low-rent criminal. And Sonny owned a strip club, and Karen was in high school. High school, mind you. He is at that point late 20s, early 30s, she is in high school working at his strip club underage. Older Sonny had the hots for Karen. But she loved her high school boyfriend, Jagger Cates (formerly played by Antonio Sabato Jr.).
General Hospital: The Cringe of Karen
But Sonny got Karen hooked on drugs and supplied them so that she would dance at his club. And then that also got Sonny into her bed. It was totally disgusting. The age gap alone was enough to make fans cringe. And then him having her strip underage and plying her with drugs until she slept with him was all just absolutely sickening. And they have definitely shifted Sonny drastically since the early 90s. Now he is a benevolent crime boss that most people like. But back then he was toxic, and his romance with Karen was nothing short of offensive and horrific. And to me, it’s hard to deny that it is his worst romantic pairing ever on General Hospital.
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