General Hospital's Jonathan Jackson breaks his silence on Lucky's exit

General Hospital fans were shocked last week when news broke that Jonathan Jackson was leaving the soap again after less than a year. Now, Jackson explains his decision to leave Lucky Spencer behind once again.

General Hospital loses Lucky

Lucky played a lot of poker when he first returned | Image: ABC

The writing seemed to be on the wall on June 5th when Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst) turned down Lucky's proposal. Just a few scenes later, Lucky realized he could never be happy staying put in Port Charles and decided to leave again.

By June 9th, Lucky was saying goodbye to Lulu (Alexa Havins), the sister he returned to save. Lucky had hoped he could be Lulu's liver, but that honor went to Sam (Kelly Monaco), who died soon after the transplant took place.

Since then, Lucky hasn't had much to do except grow closer to Elizabeth, tend bar at Charlie's, and cover for Kristina's (Kate Mansi) murderous ways. The entire resolution to his story seemed to come out of nowhere, but that's because Jackson only recently opted to bid Port Charles farewell.

Jackson explains his exit

General Hospital's Lucky and Liz were not meant to be | Image: ABC

Jackson had hoped that commuting between his home in Tennessee and the GH studios in Los Angeles would work out for him, but ultimately, it did not.

"There was always that possibility because it was a bit of an experiment on my part to see if I could make it work with the family dynamic," Jackson told TV Insider. "There were moments where I thought, 'I think I can find this balance with the family and time back and forth,' and then you just have to pray about it and try to do what you feel is right. We gave it our best shot, but we weren’t able to keep it going."

Jackson thanked General Hospital Executive Producer Frank Valentini for being flexible and credited him for his return, working for as long as he did.

"I was trying to stay in the moment as much as possible,” Jackson shares. That’s really where my mindset was, taking it one day at a time, but also one month at a time, and just seeing how it was feeling."

Jackson joined the cast of GH in 1993 when he was only 11 years old. He remained on the show until 1999, but returned again in 2009 for two years, as well as in 2015 for a short stint. Jackson was glad that Lucky's moments with Elizabeth this time were sweeter than his last longer run.

"When I was here in 2009 to 2011, it was more of the implosion of Lucky and Elizabeth, and it was just kind of full-on tragedy," he said. "This time, there was a lot of goodness and a lot of sweetness amidst the drama, and it was fun to be a part of that. And the response from the fans was really precious as well."

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