Days of Our Lives Shocker: Ron Carlivati Is Out and New Co-Headwriters Named, ‘Beginning Immediately’

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It looks like Days of Our Lives is going through another major shakeup as headwriter Ron Carlivati has left the sudser, with veteran writers Paula Cwikly and Jeanne Marie Ford taking over handwriting duties — effective immediately.

The Peacock soap released a statement saying that, “Days of our Lives is announcing today that Paula Cwikly and Jeanne Marie Ford will become the daytime drama’s new head writers beginning immediately. As part of the change, head writer Ron Carlivati will be departing the show after seven years. Episodes written by him will air through April 2025 due to the show’s unique tape to air schedule.”

Executive producer Ken Corday and Carlivati recently celebrated the show’s 15,000th episode.

Credit: © XJJohnson/jpistudios.com

Cwikly, as Days of Our Lives shares, “has a long tenure in daytime television.” She’s written for The Young and The Restless, As The World Turns, Sunset Beach, “and was with Days of our Lives as both an associate and head writer in the early 2000s. Jeanne Marie Ford is currently on the writing team as a breakdown writer and also has a long history writing for Days, having started her career as a writer’s assistant in 1992.”

In addition to Days of Our Lives, she’s also worked as a writer for As The World Turns and One Life To Live. In other words, both writers have a long history in daytime across all three major networks.

Executive Producer Ken Corday says of the change that , “We look forward to approaching our 60th Anniversary next year with Paula and Jeanne Marie at the helm and fresh, exciting stories that we know the fans will embrace. We wish Ron nothing but the best and thank him for his dedication and the respect he has shown to me, the cast, and the show’s legacy.”

This, of course, comes just under a year after Albert Alarr was ousted as co-executive producer and replaced by Janet Spellman-Drucker.
Carlivati joined Days of Our Lives as headwriter seven years ago in 2017, two years after being let go as General Hospital’s headwriter. That’s a position he’d held since One Life to Live went off the air in 2012.

During his time at Days of Our Lives, we’ve gotten some memorable (and somewhat divisive) storylines, from the one year time jump, to the devil’s return. Bo’s been brought back to life and Carlivati has penned both John Aniston’s and Bill Hayes’ farewells after the daytime legends passed away.

Days of Our Lives typically shoots episodes about six months in advance, but with this news, it sounds like the lead time has grown even more. So while you can probably expect some big changes to come with the new writing team, it will be quite some time before we see them onscreen.