In a newly released statement, ABC has confirmed a report first made by Soap Central last week: 13-year veteran Rebecca Herbst (Elizabeth Webber) will no longer be exiting the show as originally announced in January.

"Rebecca Herbst will continue on as Elizabeth Webber," ABC said in a statement. "The show is thrilled she will remain on the canvas to portray the beloved character in many more poignant and emotional stories. Fans will be pleased to see Rebecca continue the role she created."

Rumblings of Herbst's "un-firing" first surfaced last week when an early morning Twitter post by ABC Soaps In Depth revealed that set sources were saying that Herbst would no longer be exiting the show. The whispers grew, and Herbst's co-stars started weighing in with their own inside information.

"I thinks its true Becky is STAYING!" Laura Wright (Carly Jacks) wrote on her own Twitter page.

In January, General Hospital announced that Herbst, who'd joined the show in August 1997, would be making a storyline-dictated exit. Herbst's co-stars immediately took to the Internet to voice their opinions on Herbst's firing, opinions that ranged from "devastated" to "heartbroken." Fans were likewise upset by the announcement, and many started petitions and letter-writing campaigns to convince ABC to reconsider. It appears that their work paid off.

"A lot of times, fans react and for a few days, it's all anyone can talk about. But Becky Herbst fans really refused to let this drop," Soaps In Depth's executive editor, Richard M. Simms, commented in an interview with TheTVAddict.com "Things may finally have reached a breaking point with a lot of fans, who just couldn't accept another legacy character being canned."