The Controversial Nikki Newman Story The Young And The Restless Fans Never Got To See
Nikki Newman has been a staple of "The Young and the Restless" since Melody Thomas Scott joined the cast in February 1979. Nikki has been through many ups and downs over the years and faced her fair share of triumph and tragedy. In her over four decades on the soap, Nikki has been married eleven times – four of which were to business and media titan Victor Newman (Eric Braeden). In recent years, Nikki has become somewhat of a business maven herself, and she continues to cement herself as a power player at Newman Enterprises. However, it wasn't always like that. In fact, Nikki's scandalous past is something that viewers still remember most about her.
Throughout her early days on "Y&R," Nikki performed as an exotic dancer (via Soaps in Depth). At the time, she was young and impressionable and coxed into performing at The Bayou strip club. It wasn't all bad, though. The Bayou is where she met Victor for the first time and left him captivated by her. After seeing her at the club, Victor eventually took Nikki out of that environment and played a prominent role in her transformation into the polished and refined matriarch of the Newman family.
However, new information about the soap has come to light, uncovering the truth that Nikki was never meant to be a stripper. Instead, an alternative idea was ultimately deemed too risque for daytime television.
Nikki became a stripper after mud wrestling was deemed too risque
Longtime viewers of "The Young and the Restless" will remember Nikki Newman's previous life as a stripper — which led to her romance with Victor Newman, what Melody Thomas Scott says is the essence of Nikki. However, that story arc almost never came to fruition.
In a recent podcast interview with Soap Opera Digest, Melody Thomas Scott made a significant revelation about her character's past and a change that was made. She said, "I got called to [producer] John Conboy's office. 'What would you think of Nikki being a mud wrestler?' I was so thrilled. I didn't even really understand what that meant, but I was so happy I wasn't being fired." Scott went into further detail about the preparation for the potential mud wrestling storyline. She recalled, "At that time, up on Sunset Boulevard, there were all these mud wrestling clubs. It's hard to believe now, but it was very popular! So Roberta [Leighton, Casey Reed] and I would go. We would go there every night! And I'm right in there, getting mud splashed in my face because I'm doing research now!"
However, the network scoffed at the idea of mud wrestling on daytime television and shut the idea down before it began. Scott stated, "Maybe a week later, CBS programs and practices got wind of this idea, and they nixed it. And so, because she couldn't be a mud wrestler, [executive producer Bill Bell] decided to make her a stripper. That was not the original plan."