Days of Our Lives’ Eileen Davidson Reveals How She Played Detective to Face Down Death Threats: ‘She Said She Was Going to Knife Me’
“I had one woman taken out of a fan event by security.”
As Days of Our Lives‘ Eileen Davidson can tell you, life in the public eye is not always easy, especially when you play a character as divisive as Kristen DiMera. Back when the actress first originated the role, she recalled on Soap Opera Digest‘s podcast, Kristen was a bit of a goody-goody. But then she turned into a troublemaker and got mixed up with John Black, coming between “Jarlena” for the first time.
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“I loved being the spoiler,” Davidson admitted. “I thought it was fun.” Plus, she said she had great chemistry with John’s Drake Hogestyn and Marlena’s Deidre Hall, and they all had a blast playing the story — and still do every time they get back together!
The fans, though, had different thoughts.
“Those hardcore Marlena/John Black fans,” Davidson sighed. “Oh. My. God. That is like a whole different animal, people.”
And when she says a whole different animal, she means there were some lethal predators out there. And they were out for her blood.
“I had death threats against me,” the actress recalled. “One woman had said she was going to knife me, and she was writing me on a regular basis, threatening me.”
Above: Kristen faced off against the actual devil, but somehow she still earned the fans’ ire.
Credit: NBC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
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Things got pretty dicey, but that just meant Davidson had to work extra hard to put an end to the threats. She kept reading the letters and gleaned from one of them that this woman had attended a fan event. She brought in security and they poured over the letters to figure out who this person was.
“And they found her,” the actress marveled. “They carried her out in the middle of the next fan event. She was screaming, ‘I’m harmless! I’m harmless!’”
We guess what they say is true: They always return to the scene of the crime. Or rather, the scene of the fan event. But that, sadly, was far from the only unnerving fan interaction that Davidson had.
“I had to be accompanied to my car by security,” she continued of another incident. “Prisoners would write me knowing my route home.”
Now that is truly chilling. So, it made sense as she explained that this was around the time that she stopped responding to fan mail.
“I hope people are listening to this if they’ve written and they haven’t gotten a response,” the actress shared. “I’ve actually been told not to respond, because you never know what gets in somebody’s mind, and it’s just not something you want to joke around with.”
No, it isn’t. And it’s just plain sad that a few folks could ruin things for everyone and put Davidson through so much unnecessary trauma and stress because they couldn’t separate fantasy from reality.
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No matter how badly a character might misbehave, that should never, ever be taken out on the actors. With that said, it can be tough to figure out where Kristen stands as she’s shifted from good to bad and back again several times over the years. So before heading out, why not check out our gallery of Days of Our Lives baddies gone good. Because no one’s beyond redemption, and no character’s evil deeds are worth attacking folks in real life.
