General Hospital's Tajh Bellow thanks fans for Daytime Emmy support, updates TJ's status

General Hospital star Tajh Bellow (Dr. TJ Ashford) returned to Instagram Aug. 11 to thank fans for their support after his recent Daytime Emmy nomination and give an update on the future of his young doctor character on the show.

Bellow was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor for the upcoming Emmy broadcast, which will be in October.

General Hospital's Tajh Bellow was nominated for a Daytime Emmy

He posted a video of himself talking to his followers, saying, “Hey guys, I have been taking my time processing the nomination, and I just wanna say thank you for all of the congratulatory messages and the outpouring of support for TJ and that heartbreaking storyline. It was a privilege to be afforded the space as a Creole black man to grieve and hurt and really wrestle and tackle that raw emotion. And then for that to be visible to millions of viewers, I think that is important storytelling and I hope that it opens stores for more people that look like me and talk like me.”

Bellow has not been on General Hospital as TJ since December. Offscreen, TJ is still working at the hospital and interacting with his family.

Bellow is about to embark on a Master’s Degree at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, studying Entertainment Leadership and Management. Bellow shared his acceptance into the program in June. In the new post, Bellow said he has not closed the door for TJ to return to Port Charles.

“I'm excited, and as far as the future of TJ and if he'll be back and in the capacity of which he'll be back, I can't speak to that yet,” he said, “but I am excited about upcoming projects that are on the way, and more diverse storytelling.”

Tanisha Harper, who plays TJ’s mother Jordan Ashford on General Hospital, commented on the post, “I'm so excited for you! Doing big things!”

Marc Anthony Samuel (Felix DuBois), said “More diverse storytelling is where it’s at! Congratulations bro.”

Numerous fans congratulated him on the nomination and told him they missed having TJ on General Hospital and wished he would come back. The Instagram user 79_redbone said, “I hate how you just disappeared on the show with no explanation whatsoever, like your fans wasn’t going to recognize you (were) gone. Congratulations on your nomination well deserved.”

Bellow also shared an interview he did with Digital Journal, in which he talked about the storylines which earned him the nomination. TJ and Molly (Kristen Vaganos) lost their child when their surrogate, Molly’s sister Kristina (Kate Mansi) accidentally fell several stories into the Metro Court pool. TJ and Molly later broke up.

On tackling grief, Bellow told Digital Journal, “Grief is such an interesting yet complicated thing. As a male, you have all of these different layers of how people tell you that you should be able to grieve, how to demonstrate pain, and how you should handle a situation.

“A lot of men and a lot of people of color don’t get a chance to actually come apart and unravel and just deal with raw emotion like that. I wanted to make sure that I did this storyline justice, especially for people who experienced these situations, I wanted their pain to be visible, shared, and relatable.”

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Bellow also praised several of his General Hospital costars in the interview. Of Vaganos, he said “We had to jump into this intense storyline out of nowhere together and we were trying to portray 12 years of history…we found chemistry together quickly, jumped into losing our child, and then, losing each other. My hat goes off to Kristen for doing such a great job and doing it so quickly.”

Catch all-new episodes of General Hospital weekdays on ABC and Hulu.

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