Robert Palmer Watkins Breaks His Silence On 'Brutal' Firing From General Hospital

Dillon Quartermaine has always been somewhat of a failed experiment on "General Hospital." No actor has been able to maintain the role for more than a few years, with Dillon always abruptly being removed from the canvas. However, there was a glimmer of hope in 2015 when Robert Palmer Watkins stepped into the character, igniting a renewed spotlight on Dillon.

Dillon was involved in a high-profile relationship with Kiki Jerome (Hayley Erin), but once that was over, the character was unexpectedly sent packing from Port Charles. After only two years back in town, Dillon exited with little fanfare, and details were sparse at the time. At the time, the Quartermaine family was already on life support, with their dwindling numbers shrinking even more. Today, there's been a resurgence, but at the time, the Quartermaines weren't a priority for the powers-that-be at "GH."

However, thanks to Watkins himself, some of those murky details are becoming a bit clearer. In an interview with Soaps, Watkins detailed the moment he learned he wouldn't be continuing on as Dillon, describing the firing as "brutal." However shocking it was for viewers for Dillon to be dropped from the series, it appears that nobody was more stunned than Watkins himself. He revealed he was "totally shocked," and admitted that he "never saw it coming." 

Robert Palmer Watkins' time as Dillon Quartermaine on "General Hospital" came to a screeching halt while he was away filming other projects. He was shooting a movie during his approved time off, and it was during that break from "GH" that the rug was pulled out from underneath him. "I was shooting a movie, so I was taking a couple-week break from 'General Hospital' to shoot the last three days, and I actually found out that they were releasing me from contract while I was on my lunch break," he told Soaps. "So that was pretty brutal, and I was trying to hold it together."

However, if being unceremoniously fired from his job at "GH" wasn't enough, news leaked to the media about the unfortunate circumstance. The powers that be at the soap opera confronted Watkins about the leak, even going as far as to insinuate he may be behind releasing the information to the press. "I don't know how, but it leaked out literally the day I found out," Watkins said "It was all over the internet. So I don't know how that happened. And I even got a call from 'General Hospital' [because] they were not happy that it was leaked out, and I was like, 'I didn't leak it.'"

Since Watkins was fired as Dillon, the character is almost never mentioned by anyone on the sudser, making the actor's removal even more significant.