Why Days' Linsey Godfrey & Paul Telfer Disagree On Sarah's Paternity Lie - Exclusive Interview
Sarah Horton (Linsey Godfrey) created another paternity mess on "Days of Our Lives." Not learning from her past mistake of having Xander Cook (Paul Telfer) pretend to be the father of her and Eric Brady's (Greg Vaughan) child — which turned into a huge flap — she recently had Rex Brady (Kyle Lowder) pretend to be the father of a baby sired by Xander, because she believed he was dangerous. Xander had kidnapped Bonnie Lockhart (Judi Evans) and Susan Banks (Stacy Haiduk), resulting in the death of Susan, and thus Sarah divorced him. But now that Susan turned up not dead, and the truth came out about her baby's paternity, Xander is fighting for full custody, and the battle lines are drawn.
At the October 21, 2023 "Day of Days" fan extravaganza hosted by Peacock, Godfrey and Telfer exclusively spoke to The List about this latest storyline. Whether or not Sarah felt keeping her child's paternity a secret from Xander was in character or should have been handled a different way, Godfrey made no bones about her feelings. "I really hated it. Especially because we'd already done it with Eric," she stated, searching for the right words. "It's so stupid because I'm an actor," she continued, "But when you play a character consistently for a really long time, I really hate playing ... I hate lying." She felt she had already done the hiding a paternity story with Xander in Rex's place.
Paul Telfer held a contrary position on the matter
During Paul Telfer and Linsey Godfrey's exclusive conversation with The List, the two had a back-and-forth when he disagreed with her. "These are actually not as bad as [some of] the things she had done," he said, referencing Sarah's other misdeeds, beyond hiding paternities. She felt this go-round was just as bad as anything else her character has done, and Telfer tried to clarify her meaning by asking, "These are deal breakers?" Her response was simply, "As a mom, I'm like, 'God, to keep anybody's child from them is cruel.' So I do understand where some of the fans are coming from."
Telfer firmly disagreed, stating, "Whereas I don't. I think the fans cut Xander way, way, way, way too much slack, and that if you did look at even his [past crimes], given his recent behavior, if you look at the sum total of his behavior over the years, even if he does change, there's a good chance he's going to go to jail, or something from his past is going to come back and endanger the family." He felt that Sarah was well within her rights to do what she did, considering that they ended up divorced. He resigned himself to the fact the truth came out, sighing, "But here we are."
Godfrey retorted, "Yeah. But we love each other, so we have to be together anyway," to which Telfer did agree, "It must happen."