Who Plays Claire's Aunt Jordan on Young & Restless? It's Colleen Zenk

Ow. Our jaws hit the floor, and hard, when we discovered on November 17 that The Young and the Restless had cast none other than As the World Turns legend Colleen Zenk as Claire’s much-discussed Aunt Jordan.

Somehow the CBS soap managed to keep the fan favorite’s hiring a secret until boom! There the actress was — on screen. And on one hand, we’re mystified by this storyline; who the heck are Claire and Jordan, and why would they hate Nikki and the Newmans? On the other, we’re beyond intrigued. After all these years, are there skeletons rattling around in Nikki’s closet that have yet to be cleared out?

“What have I done to deserve this?”

Credit: Howard Wise/JPI

The daytime drama even seemed to guess that we’d be as full of questions as Nikki. “Aunt Jordan will explain everything… once everyone is here,” Claire promised her captive. “If I tried to tell you, I’m afraid I’d get too emotional. I’m usually good at keeping everything inside, but this… this is too big, too important.

“You could say,” she added, “I’ve been waiting for this Thanksgiving my whole life.”

We’ve theorized that the mastermind behind Claire’s revenge plot might be a familiar villain from the past. (See which infamous baddie here.) We’ve also theorized that Nikki’s conniving assistant might have ties to a long-gone member of her family. (Read all about that scumbag here.) But what is the truth? That, we still have to wait to see.

Zenk is, of course, iconic owing to her 1978-2010 run as designer/troublemaker Barbara Ryan on As the World Turns. During her epic stint on the much-missed CBS daytime drama, she played both vixen and victim as Barbara took on dastardly ex-husband James Stenbeck, traveled through time, survived an explosion that left her terribly scarred and enjoyed a sweet May/December romance.

See what other actors are joining Young & Restless in our newly updated photo gallery.

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