With Girlfriends now streaming on Netflix, fans may be wondering where Reggie Hayes is. The actor who portrayed William Jerome Dent on the CW sitcom did not join his cast members for the ET Girlfriends REUNION!
Created by Mara Brock Akil, the series followed the lives of four Black women, Joan Carol Clayton (Tracee Ellis Ross), Maya Denise Wilkes (Golden Brooks), Lynn Ann Searcy (Persia White), and Antoinette Marie “Toni” Childs–Garrett (Jill Marie Jones). The four ladies dealt with love, friendship, and life issues when the show initially aired on the UPN network (2000 – 2006) and then The CW (2006-2008). Jones left the series after season 6.
Hayes, who played the smart and nerdy attorney with the best comeback lines, William Jerome Dent, recently took to Instagram to share that he has congestive heart failure after he was recently hospitalized. The actor has been vocal in the past about his struggles following the end of the beloved sitcom sharing that he lived in his sister’s garage after the series ended and that acting jobs began to dry up.
“We’re still not sure what’s going on, I gotta take more tests,” Hayes revealed to the Chicago Tribune’s Nina Metz in an interview published Wednesday. “But I have congestive heart failure and it was difficult to breathe. Here in L.A., the sky has been orange with smoke (because of wildfires) and it was just really terrible. So I was in the hospital overnight, they were having trouble getting my blood pressure back down. Seems like the more they look, the more problems they find.”
Of the challenges, after the show debuted 20 years ago, Hayes says, “It was a difficult time, money-wise. “I had started a complete rebuild on my house and all of a sudden I didn’t have a job. But the house was on an amazing piece of land and I was able to sell it and break even. So I moved from a house on the hill down to a little bungalow in a sketchy area and people would come by: ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Those were pretty awful years. I made it work with my little residual checks for a year and then I ended up moving into my sister’s garage for six years.”
He also shared the few jobs he’d try his hand at, but that didn’t last long. “I tried being a bouncer for a while, and everyone in the club wanted their picture taken with me,” Hayes shared. “I’m 6-feet-2 but everybody knows I’m like a mouse; once you know me, you know I’m a pushover. So that didn’t work out. I also tried being a furniture mover, but I was in my 40s so that only lasted a couple of days. My back never would have survived it.”
Since news of Hayes health, his co-stars have reached out to him on social media with well-wishes and love. Jones commented, Sending LOTS OF LOVE and Prayers your way ♥️♥️??????.
Photo Credit: Instagram
