What Really Happened To Nelle On General Hospital?

In the spring of 2022, Carly Corinthos (Laura Wright) was shocked when she heard the name "Nelle" again as Harmony Miller (Inga Cadranel) was making a deathbed confession. 

That name and the person it belonged to had caused so much trouble for Carly in the past on "General Hospital," and her memory and legacy are about to cause even more trouble for Carly as she keeps Harmony's secret (via Soaps.com).

When Carly first met the woman calling herself Nelle Hayes (Chloe Lanier), she was thrilled to have the young woman in her life (via Soaps In Depth) and even gave her a job. But, when she learned who Nelle really was (or who Nelle thought she was) and the things she had done, Carly quickly changed her tune. 

How did Nelle become such a trigger name for Carly, and why will she forever haunt her — whether she stays dead or one day turns up alive?

When Nelle Hayes first arrived in Port Charles and on the "General Hospital" scene, her smile was so sweet you knew there had to be something more behind it — and there definitely was. 

Nelle had various reasons for knocking on Carly Corinthos' door one night, including the fact that she was the kidney donor Carly and her adolescent daughter, Josslyn Jacks (Eden McCoy), had been looking for. 

Josslyn needed a kidney as a baby, and Carly later learned the kidney came from the black market. When Nelle arrived, she told the story of her parents driving her in the middle of the night to have her kidney cut out, but she was happy it went to someone like Joss (Soaps In Depth).

However, fans could tell Nelle also had a vendetta against Carly, but they didn't know why. As she took a job as Carly's new assistant, Nelle also made herself indispensable as a babysitter and grew close to Carly's husband, Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard). 

One night, she got Sonny drunk, crawled into bed with him, and pretended they had slept together. Carly was infuriated — but even more infuriated when she learned it was a trick (via Soaps.com).

While Nelle Hayes was plotting against Carly Corinthos, she also started dating Carly's oldest son, Michael Corinthos (Chad Duell). Michael even forgave Nelle when he heard why she resented his mother so much. 

It seemed that Nelle's real last name was Benson, and she was raised by her father, Frank Benson, who was also Carly's adoptive father. As Nelle had a bad childhood and Carly was now rich, Nelle felt Carly owed her something (via Soaps.com).

From that moment on, Carly hated Nelle, especially the fact that Nelle and Michael were together. So, she did some digging and found that Nelle once had a fiance who died in a mysterious drowning accident. Nelle was a suspect but had been cleared. 

By then, Michael started suspecting something was off with Nelle and distanced himself. However, when Nelle announced she was pregnant, Michael reluctantly grew close to her again, but Nelle didn't know he didn't trust her. 

All she knew was that she never wanted Carly to get to be a grandmother to her baby, so she accused Carly of throwing her down the stairs when pregnant (via Soaps In Depth). 

Michael pretended to side with Nelle to try and get the goods on her. He even married her, but then he cornered her in the car one night and got her to confess to killing her fiance. That led to a car accident, which led to Nelle wandering into the woods.

While running through the woods, Nelle Benson went into labor. Liesl Obrecht (Kathleen Gati) was also running through the woods to escape the police, but, since she was a doctor, she stopped to deliver Nelle's son. 

As Nelle then wandered with a newborn in hand, she ran into her friend, Brad Cooper (Parry Shen), and he also had a newborn in the back of his seat. It was the baby he just adopted, who stopped breathing in his crib. Nelle convinced Brad to give her the dead baby, and she gave him her son to present to his husband, Lucas Jones (Ryan Carnes). Nelle told Michael their baby died at birth and was taken to jail (via Soaps in Depth).

Over the next nearly two years, Nelle kept tabs on her son via updates from Brad, and Michael mourned a son he thought died. When the truth came out, Nelle managed to get herself paroled and sued for custody of the baby now known as Wiley. 

That's when Michael married Willow Tait (Katelyn MacMullen) so the judge would see a two-parent home (via Soap Hub). To even things out, Nelle convinced Julian Jerome (William deVry) to marry her but lost her case anyway (via Soaps.com).

When visitation rights weren't enough for Nelle Benson, she kidnapped Wiley with the help of Julian Jerome, but Julian was easily caught. Nelle decided she would run from the police and hide in the woods, and that's when she ran into Carly at the Corinthos cabin. Nelle and Carly fought as always, and Nelle ran off again with Carly chasing her.

Unfortunately, Nelle didn't look two feet in front of her and fell off a cliff. She hung on as Carly tried to pull her up, but it was no use, and Nelle plunged into the water below (via Soaps In Depth). 

While Nelle's ex-lover, Detective Harrison Chase (Josh Swickard), was called to identify the body, he was very vague with Michael Corinthos about what he saw, leaving some fans to wonder if Nelle is still alive, which would certainly make a future story more interesting.

Even if Nelle is dead, she is still mentioned almost daily as she turned out to be the long-lost daughter whom Nina Reeves (Cynthia Watros) had spent years looking for. As of this writing, Nina has yet to learn she actually had twins and that Willow Tait is Nelle's sister (via Soaps.com).