‘Young & The Restless’ Star Slams Eva Longoria For Her “Derogatory” Comments About Soap Operas: “Complete Lack of Class”

Soap opera star Eric Braeden had some choice words to share with Eva Longoria after the actress opened up about her time working in soaps early on in her career.

Braeden, who has starred in Young and The Restless since 1983, took to Twitter to slam the Desperate Housewives star for making what he described as “derogatory comments” about the show. 

He tweeted, “EVA LONGORIA: you just made derogatory remarks about daytime actors! You simply weren’t good enough to survive the pressures of this medium! You were very lucky to get on that ‘housewife’ show! You did one show in 8-12 days, with mediocre but salacious dialogue!”

Eva Longoria was a series regular on Young & The Restless between 2001 and 2003 when she played Isabella Braña. This role proved to be her big break; the actress went on to star in her career-defining role as Gabrielle Solis on Desperate Housewives from 2004 to 2012.

Braeden didn’t let up. “Our actresses would run rings around you!! And they did then!! From Robert de Nero to whoever they all are, many of them started in the medium you denigrate! It shows a complete lack of class!!” he said. 

He was referring to Longoria’s recent appearance on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? in which she talked about working a day job as a headhunter at a temp agency while starring in Young & The Restless. She would do her work right from her dressing room on set. “I was so good at it that when I got Young & The Restless, it didn’t pay enough for me to live off being an actor,” she said. 

She continued, “I would hide the fact that I was on Young and the Restless to my clients because they didn’t want a dumb actress handling their accounts.”

Longoria said she wouldn’t even admit to being on the show if one of her clients recognized her.  “I was like the opposite of a publicist’s dream,” she recalled. “I was, like, ‘Don’t tell anybody I’m on that show!’ Because I was, you know, still making more money on my day job.”

Not everyone agreed with Braeden’s response to Longoria’s interview. Some were unsure that her comments were as “derogatory” as he thought them to be.

“That’s all she said? He’s overreacting. Struggling actors (whatever genre they are in) just don’t go around bragging at their other job that they are a struggling actor on the side. She didn’t insult daytime soaps,” one user tweeted under a clip from her interview. 

Braeden later doubled down on his comments in another tweet. “I have nothing against Eva, I was just incensed by the same denigrating crap I hear so often by people in our biz about this medium! Either they no nothing about it, or couldn’t …,” he said.

Longoria has not responded to Braeden’s statements against her.