Soap Star Leaves Pregnant Wife, but There's Backstory

Usually a guy ditching his wife when she's pregnant elicits scorn for such abandonment. This week, however, a brief but revelatory message from former General Hospital star Steve Burton, whose wife Sheree Gustin is expecting, takes some of the heat off him regarding their split. "I wanted to clear something up. Sheree and I are separated," Burton, 51, first announced on Instagram Wednesday, per Page Six. Then, maybe some more insight into what could have caused the rift. "She recently announced that she's expecting her 4th child," Burton wrote. "The child is not mine."

Burton added that he and Gustin, 47, whom he's been married to for 23 years, "are still co-parenting our three beautiful kids," ages 7, 16, and 18. People notes it's not clear how long the two, who met on the set of General Hospital, have been separated. Per GeneralHospitalBlog.com, Gustin recently announced her pregnancy on Instagram, along with the caption: "Life sure is full of surprises!" It's been a somewhat tumultuous year for Burton, who played Jason Morgan on General Hospital for 30 years: He was fired from the popular ABC soap opera in November for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. (More celebrity split up stories.)