How The Young and the Restless’ Jermaine Rivers’ twist of fate led to a storyline shocker

The Young and the Restless pulled off the near-impossible this week and held out on a secret: Damian wasn’t actually Damian. He was Holden, who posed as his friend at his request. Damian doesn’t like people knowing his secrets, and he also doesn’t like surprises. His actor, Jermaine Rivers, though, was pretty excited about surprising the audience.

Who is The Young and the Restless’ Jermaine Rivers?

Although the most talked about actor in soaps today — literally — Jermaine Rivers wasn’t always an actor. He spent 20 years serving active-duty military. When nearing his retirement from the military in 2013, he had a chance encounter that changed his career and, ultimately, turned the long-time Y&R fan into a cast member.

Rivers told the story in an interview with TV Insider. “I was at a hotel bar and long story short, I met my former agent at the bar. I bumped into her accidentally, and she spilled a drink, so I bought her another one and apologized. I walked out the door to the balcony and she came out a few minutes later and was like, ‘Thank you for the drink, and you have a great look. What do you do?’ I told her I was currently processing out of the military, and she said I could be an actor or model. I blew it off, but she gave me a business card,” Rivers recalled.

Rivers signed with the agent and then appeared in a movie with Danny Glover and Richard Dreyfus called Killing Winston Jones, and that’s when he said he “got the bug” for acting. Two months after he finished that movie, he starred in The Sacrament. “By the time I was officially out of the military on June 31, 2013, I had about three or four regional commercials under my belt and a couple of films, and I was gaining a little ground. I knew it going in that it’s a game of inches, and it’s going to be a slow grind, and I was okay with it,” Rivers shared.

Rivers described himself as “a comic book geek” when he was growing up in Germany as an “Army brat.” He would spend his lunch money on comic books and eventually had a “surreal moment” becoming Marvel’s Shatter, a superhero on The Gifted.

Jermaine Rivers is a fan of The Young and the Restless

Viewers of The Young and the Restless were shocked by the reveal that Damian Kane was actually a man named Holden. While fans had just gotten to know actor Nathan Owens, Rivers shared how excited he was to assume the role and for the world to meet the real Damian. “It feels like the universe conspired for me to be at the right place at the right time to be placed where I am right now.”

River grew up watching the show with his mom and considers himself a fan. “I had to compartmentalize. I walked around and was like, ‘I recognize this set. I recognize the coffee shop,’ so it was kind of like, ‘Wow, I’m here,’ but then I thought, ‘Okay, now it’s time to do your job, have fun, enjoy the moment and make it real.’ ”

Watch new episodes of The Young and the Restless on CBS or stream on Paramount Plus.