General Hospital's Corinthos Family Tree Explained

The "General Hospital" Corinthos family tree and its many branches extend almost everywhere throughout Port Charles. In fact, Sonny Corinthos (played by Maurice Benard) has so many children that when the one he adopted, Michael Corinthos (Chad Duell), recently decided that he was going to destroy his father's life, Sonny shrugged it off. He told his new girlfriend, Nina Reeves (Cynthia Watros), that he has no problems washing his hands of Michael for the moment (via Soaps.com).

The Corinthos family is also the biggest crime family in Port Charles, but since Sonny doesn't deal in drugs, weapons, or prostitution, fans have yet to learn what his illegal operation does. This leaves the writers the option to paint Sonny as both a mobster and a flawed hero at the same time, who has a big family his subconscious seemed to want to get away from when he had amnesia for nine months in a small Pennsylvania town called Nixon Falls (via Soaps In Depth).

Who are the other members of the Corinthos clan that have made Port Charles a fascinating place to be for decades?

Sonny Corinthos had already been a member of the "General Hospital" scene in the 1990s when his long-lost father, Mike Corbin (then played by Ron Hale), appeared in town. Mike was married to Sonny's late mother, Adella, but had left her when Sonny was just a child, never to be seen again for decades. Although Mike and Sonny's relationship was fraught at first, they eventually grew close and kept in touch when Mike moved to New York City in 2010 after 15 years as a Port Charles resident (via Soaps In Depth).

When Mike returned to the scene in 2018, he was now played by primetime sitcom "Barney Miller" veteran Max Gail (via IMDb) and Sonny learned he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Sonny brought him back to Port Charles and cared for him, bringing father and son closer than ever before. There wasn't a dry eye in the house when Mike passed away from his illness in 2020.

Sonny Corinthos has been a part of the "General Hospital" scene since 1993 as the sleazy owner of a strip club who got Scott Baldwin's daughter, Karen Wexler (Cari Shayne), hooked on drugs (via Soap Central). It turned out Sonny was just a mob underling then, but he eventually started rising to the top and soon fell for Brenda Barrett (Vanessa Marcil), a younger woman starting her modeling career with Deception Cosmetics. Some fans still believe Sonny and Brenda are endgame despite Brenda living in Europe for years.

In between romances with Brenda, Sonny has married and been with a lot of women, and some of those women have even given him children. Sonny has been married to Carly Benson Corinthos (Laura Wright) the longest, but as of 2022, they are divorced once again. Sonny returned from his Nixon Falls amnesia experience as a different man who had feelings for Nina Reeves, a woman from Port Charles who found him in Nixon Falls and fell in love with him while keeping his identity a secret. In all fairness to Nina, Sonny constantly told her he had no interest in learning his true identity (via Soaps In Depth).

Sonny Corinthos just can't seem to stay away from Carly Corinthos, and they have been married and divorced several times over since 2000. As of this writing, Carly can't handle that Sonny returned from Nixon Falls with feelings for Nina Reeves, despite the fact that he had amnesia when he developed those feelings (via Soaps.com).

Carly doesn't talk about how she'd secretly — or not-so-secretly — loved Sonny's right-hand man, Jason Morgan (Steve Burton). And she had married him believing Sonny was dead, and was ready to sleep with him the day Sonny returned to town after regaining his memory (via Soaps.com). Jason is now presumed dead and Carly still talks about him daily, mentioning how much Jason would comfort her and keep her grounded in her moments of need.

Still, over the years she was married to Sonny, she gave him several children, including Michael, Morgan, and Donna Corinthos. She also has a college-age daughter with Jasper Jacks (Ingo Rademacher) named Josslyn Jacks (Eden McCoy), according to Soaps In Depth.

In 2009, a new undercover cop arrived in Port Charles under the name Dominic Pirelli, and when Sonny Corinthos learned this man was a cop who was trying to infiltrate his organization, he shot him. That's when Sonny's ex from his teenage years in Brooklyn, New York, Olivia Falconeri (Lisa LoCicero), burst into the room and announced that Dominic was really Dante Falconeri (Dominic Zamprogna) and the son that Sonny never knew he had (via Soap Central).

Over the years, Dante has remained a cop with a mobster for a father, but they have also grown close and he sometimes seems to be the only one of Sonny's kids who care about him. Dante also has his own son, Rocco, with ex-wife, Lulu Falconeri (Emme Rylan), a woman who has been lingering in a coma in a New York hospital now for nearly two years. As of this writing, Dante is involved in a romance with Sam McCall (Kelly Monaco), according to via Soaps In Depth, a woman who once gave birth to Sonny's stillborn baby she named Lila Rae (via Soap Central).

Sonny might have several children with Carly, but a brief affair with his former lawyer Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn) produced his first daughter, Kristina Corinthos Davis (Lexi Ainsworth). Although they were never together, Sonny and Alexis co-parented Kristina, who grew up to start in a reality series about a mafia princess, and have a series of failed romances, including one abusive relationship (via Soap Central).

When Kristina went away to college, she fell for one of her professors, which ended up with her being expelled from school. Eventually, Kristina admitted that the professor she fell for was a woman named Parker Forsythe (Ashley Jones). Kristina and Parker soon moved away together to start a new life, but the relationship didn't work out, so Kristina returned to Port Charles and ended up joining a cult called Dawn of Day. Thankfully, her family rescued her from the cult and, as of this writing, she tends bar at Charlie's Pub, although she is rarely seen on-screen (via Soaps In Depth).

Carly Corinthos never wanted AJ Quartermaine (played by Billy Warlock and Sean Kanan) to raise the son they conceived via a one-night stand, so she tried to pass him off as anyone but AJ's child. But AJ did learn the truth and wanted to raise his son. When Sonny and Carly married, Sonny wanted to adopt AJ and used his mob ways to coerce AJ to sign away his rights to Michael and that's how the boy became known as Michael Corinthos (via Soap Central).

Michael had many horrible things happen to him as a child due to his father being a crime lord, including being shot in the head and lingering in a coma. He was also presumed dead at one time and spent a few months in prison, where he was sexually assaulted in a sad and disturbing story. In 2022, adult Michael (Chad Duell) is very angry that Sonny chose to defend Nina Reeves after she didn't reveal his identity to him in Nixon Falls for six months, so he shut Sonny out of his life and vowed to bring him down (via Soaps In Depth).

As of this writing, Sonny is about to make Michael even angrier when he testifies on Nina's behalf in a visitation hearing for Michael's son, Wiley, as Nina is young Wiley's biological grandmother.

Morgan Corinthos (Bryan Craig) was the only son that Sonny and Carly had together, but his birth was even fraught with danger and drama, as Sonny accidentally shot Carly in the head when she went into labor in a remote cabin (via Soap Central). Sonny and Carly were wed several times during Morgan's childhood, and he grew to be a troubled young adult with a gambling problem.

As Sonny suffers from bipolar disorder, he was able to deduce Morgan was suffering from the same thing and got him help after Morgan tried to kill himself. Carly and Sonny thought Morgan was back on the right track, but when Ava Jerome (Maura West) didn't want her ex-lover Morgan, to return to her daughter, Kiki Jerome (Hayley Erin), she switched Morgan's bipolar meds with placebos that caused Morgan to kill mobster Julian Jerome's (William deVry) car, which had been set to explode. Morgan was presumed dead in that explosion in 2016 (via Soaps In Depth).

Ava Jerome really liked those Corinthos men. She had an affair with Morgan Corinthos and later had hate sex with Sonny, in the Quartermaine crypt of all places, after Sonny had killed AJ Quartermaine (via Michael Fairman TV). That hate sex resulted in Avery Corinthos (Ava and Grace Scarola), a little girl Ava and Sonny have fought to have custody of since she was a newborn. As of this writing, the two parents get along and share Avery (via Soaps In Depth).

Carly Corinthos was shocked in 2019 when she learned she was pregnant. When Sonny asked her how it happened, she told him she guessed she was past child-bearing years and had stopped taking her birth control. Carly not understanding how biology really works resulted in young Donna Corinthos, who was born with spina bifida, a condition that was quickly treated with surgery right after her birth (via Soap Opera Spy). In 2022, Donna is rarely seen or heard and her spina bifida is never mentioned.

During his time in Port Charles, Sonny learned he had two half-siblings he never knew existed before. It turned out his mother had given up a son for adoption, which Sonny discovered when his brother, attorney Ric Lansing (Rick Hearst), arrived in town with a chip on his shoulder. He would go on to marry with Alexis Davis and Elizabeth Webber (Rebecca Herbst) and shares a daughter with Alexis, young attorney Molly Lansing Davis (via Soap Central).

Sonny was also shocked to learn that his father, Mike Corbin, had another child after he left his mother, when Courtney Matthews (Alicia Leigh Willis) arrived in Port Charles. She went on to have relationships with Jason Morgan, Jasper Jacks, and Nikolas Cassadine (then played by Tyler Christopher) before dying soon after childbirth. Nikolas raised their son, Spencer Cassadine, alone (via Soaps In Depth).

In 2019, Sonny also discovered Mike had a cousin living in Connecticut named Gladys Corbin (Bonnie Burroughs). She soon moved to Port Charles, as did her son, Brando Corbin (Johnny Wactor), and Sonny grew close to both of them (via Soaps In Depth).