‘News flash from Fla’: Beloved soap star updates fans on mysterious absence
Kin Shriner is on the mend in South Florida.
Last month, the “General Hospital” star notified fans that he’d left the beloved soap opera, where he started his career as Scotty Baldwin in 1977.
On X, he showed a picture of his dressing room door, with another actor’s name (Jens Astrup) on the placard. Scotty hadn’t been on the long running ABC show since August 2024, and viewers were definitely wondering what was up.
Seems like a health problem may have sidelined the actor.
Shriner, 71, took to X again around two weeks later, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, outside the Powerhouse Gym.
“News flash from Fla,” began the post, along with a video.
In the clip, he revealed he’s been dealing with a foot issue since last summer after a “botched” surgery. He says the medical procedure was a subtalar fusion, which involves fusing the heel bone to the talus bone to stabilize the foot.
“Scotty [sic] not just eating glazed donuts, he’s working hard to fix foot and get back to Vespa and all other things!!!!!!” the native New Yorker wrote.
“For six months, I basically couldn’t walk,” said the TV vet, adding his old pal John Stamos hooked him up with a specialist in L.A. to repair the problem.
Shriner joked he was doing so much work to improve his current situation that he’s getting “attendance records” at the gym.
“You gotta get it back,” he says to the camera. “Something goes wrong, you fix it, or you try to. Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to, so stay tuned. I will be mobile. Soon. Very soon.”
One possible reason Shriner may have traveled to South Florida for physical therapy is to be near his twin brother, “Hoot” director Wil Shriner, who has lived in the city for years.
