“Days of Our Lives” star Deirdre Hall slapped “Today” host Craig Melvin in a display of soap opera prowess — but it was all in good fun.
“Of all of the storylines that you’ve been a part of over the years, what I’ve always enjoyed is your ability to slap,” Melvin told the daytime icon on Friday’s broadcast, while discussing her five decades of playing Dr. Marlena Evans.
He added, “You’re a great slapper,” to which Hall replied, “Well thanks!”
When asked how many times she may have slapped co-stars over the decades, Hall, 78 — who began appearing on the NBC mainstay in 1976 — admitted to Melvin that she “couldn’t begin to imagine.”
Melvin then quipped that it would be “one of the greatest professional honors of my life if you could slap me.”
“I would be privileged to slap you!” Hall exclaimed before pulling her hand back for the faux strike.
“Be gentle now,” Melvin said as crew members could be heard laughing in the background.
“I’m going to draw my hand back and I’m going to come very close to your face,” Hall told Melvin, noting that when he “feel[s] that happen,” he should “snap [his] head.”
After the apparent on-camera slap, Melvin jokingly reacted with horror, recoiling and whimpering, “Oh my God!” while covering his left eye.
Hall, meanwhile, said she “meant to miss” as both laughed.
In the comments thread via YouTube, fans gushed over Hall’s half-century milestone.
“Love you Marlena!! Congratulations on 50 years!!!!!!!!!!” one person wrote, while another remarked, “Great interview. Love Deidre Hall … has watched her for those 50 years and Days since a 7 year old in 1965 …”
“Long live Deidre Hall and Marlena!” a third person enthused.
Hall’s run on the show — set in the fictional town of Salem, Illinois — has earned her three Daytime Emmy nominations.
For decades, she played the beloved psychiatrist opposite her character’s love interest, Drake Hogestyn’s John Black. Hogestyn died following a battle with pancreatic cancer just a day before his 71st birthday on Sept. 28, 2024.
In a statement to Access Hollywood at the time, Hall said her co-star was “dearly loved by everyone who ever knew him and he will be missed beyond measure.”
While Hogestyn’s character was written off the show, Hall has continued in her long-running role as Dr. Evans, which has been streaming on Peacock since 2022.

Diddy’s company is being sued after allegedly failing to close a multi-million dollar deal to sell his home on Star Island near Miami.
A man named John Franklin is suing 1 West Star Island LLC — the corporation which technically owns Diddy’s mansion in the affluent neighborhood … claiming he entered into an agreement back in March to buy the home for $55 million.
According to the lawsuit, obtained by TMZ, Franklin says the closing date was set for May 12 … but when it came around, he claims the company was “not ready or able to close” the deal even though he was.
Specifically, Franklin claims 1 West Star Island wasn’t able to provide a clear title by the closing date by failing to provide some paperwork about a couple mortgages on the property.
He notes there’s a mediation clause baked into the contract … and he says he will go to mediation to work out the deal — but he’s filing the lawsuit out of an abundance of caution to protect his interest in the property.
Franklin’s asking a judge to enforce the contract and force the sale.
Diddy’s Star Island home made headlines as one of the properties the feds raided months before the rapper’s September 2024 arrest in New York City.
Officers arrived by boat to search the compound in March 2024 … and the feds later released photos of what they found … including sex toys on a shelving unit near Vaseline and Astroglide lube.
Diddy’s currently serving time at Fort Dix — a federal prison in New Jersey. He’s expected to be released in February 2028.
The Star Island home has been a key part of Diddy’s case … every time he tried to get released on bail — after the arrest and between his verdict and sentencing — he proposed living there and offered it up as collateral.
A spokesperson for Diddy tells TMZ … “The lawsuit is against 1 West Star Island LLC, not Mr. Combs personally, and it does not allege that he ‘reneged’ on a deal or failed to pay mortgages.”
The rep goes on … “At most, the complaint claims there were title/closing documentation issues involving recorded encumbrances and a permit issue. We dispute any suggestion that Mr. Combs failed to pay off mortgages or personally caused the transaction not to close.”

“Elf” actor Faizon Love made his first appearance in a Florida courtroom Friday after being busted on an outstanding warrant.
Love, 58, wearing a red prison jumpsuit and shackled at the wrists, was brought into the Hillsborough County courtroom in a wheelchair Friday for his initial appearance.
He’s facing two contempt of court charges stemming from a child support case, according to TMZ, which reported his ex, Tiffany Lee, claims he’s $250,000 in arrears.
Lee’s lawyer argued Love ignored multiple court orders and hasn’t made the court-mandated $2,500 per month child support payments in years.
The “Couple’s Retreat” star has claimed he didn’t earn a single cent in 2025 and that his highest gross income over the last five years was just $13,000, the outlet reported.
His lawyers said the actor is having difficulty making ends meet — that he has no home, drives a 1999 car and has been forced to depend on friends to help cover his expenses.
“Do you have the current ability at this point in time to pay $2,500 a month in child support?” Love’s lawyer asked him during the hearing.
“Right now? No,” he admitted.
“The sentence is preventing him from working and ruining his name in Hollywood,” his attorney argued. “So, if he’s in jail, he can’t work.”
Appearing on a video call during the proceedings, Lee claimed Love “specifically told me that I wasn’t going to get a dime” and said he was going to stop working and cancel shows to deprive her of the money.
Love will be released from custody today, the judge giving him until July 1 to put a financial statement together to prove he can’t afford the payments, according to 10 Tampa Bay News.
The “Friday” actor was cuffed in Florida Tuesday, appearing haggard and stone-faced in a mugshot after his arrest.
He was originally arrested in California over two weeks ago and served 16 days in jail, according to the outlet.
Love’s attorney, Glen R. Lansky, told ABC News Thursday: “To my knowledge, he was picked up in Riverside County, California and transported some days later to Hillsborough County on orders of contempt from the Honorable Judge Mark Kiser.”
Reached for comment after Friday’s hearing, Lansky told the Post: “We are very pleased with the result and I have taken over representation on all outstanding matters related to his case and will be filing a supplemental petition to modify child support.”
Love has had prior run-ins with law enforcement, including several arrests for assault.
In 2017, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor for a caught-on-camera assault of a valet at the John Glenn Columbus International Airport in Ohio, for which he was fined $500 and handed a 180-day suspended jail sentence.
Last year he was accused of felony assault after allegedly hurling a credit card machine at the head of a San Diego hotel clerk after she told him she couldn’t provide the room he had booked.
Love has appeared in dozens of movies including “The Replacements” and “Couples Retreat.”

On his last show before his traditional summer break, Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday night announced the celebs who will fill in for him as guest hosts of Jimmy Kimmel Live! over the next couple of months.
Tiffany Haddish will kick things off, hosting the week of July 6. She’ll be followed throughout the summer by Anthony Anderson, Ike Barinholtz, Colman Domingo, Jelly Roll and “as a special treat for our commander in chief, I asked one of his all-time favorites — Rosie O’Donnell, to be here to keep the hits coming,” Kimmel announced. In addition to Kimmel’s ongoing war of words with Trump, it’s no secret that Trump and O’Donnell have been embroiled in a decades-long feud. After Trump’s re-election in 2024, O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her youngest child – a decision she said she made “to protect her child’s well-being and her own mental health.”
And the last night before Kimmel heads off on his two-month-long break would not be complete without a Matt Damon sighting. The star of upcoming The Odyssey arrived in a literal Trojan horse to sneak onto the stage.
“I have traveled far and wide, through waves and war, to save this audience from mediocrity,” Damon announced as he emerged from the horse.
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“This is trespassing,” Kimmel said. “This is another crime you’ve committed here.”
“Your face is a crime,” Damon replied. Damon told the audience he was there to promote his upcoming film, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which bows on July 17.
You can watch Kimmel’s entire monologue, along with Damon’s entrance, below.

‘Joe talks to everybody about everything’
Jay Leno thinks he’s spotted the new Johnny Carson—and he’s not on broadcast TV. In a wide-ranging interview with Deadline, the former Tonight Show host argues that podcasts, not traditional late-night shows, now own the talk space:
“Joe Rogan is the new Johnny Carson,” he says. “Yeah, Joe talks to everybody about everything. There’s no FCC to step in and say what you say and can’t say, so you really do get an unfiltered idea of what everybody thinks. So yeah, I mean, to me, that’s what’s also changed late-night.”
In another part of the interview, Leno blames “too many commercials” as the primary factor in the decline of late-night shows. The resulting chopped-up programs have lost their conversational feel. “Why watch that,” he asks, when viewers can pull up an hour-long, unedited chat with a star online at any time? Read the full interview, in which Leno pushes back on criticism from HBO’s John Oliver and insists he never said that current hosts are “doing it wrong.”
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