Jen Lilley Calls “Days of Our Lives” Recast 'Befuddling' but Says Other Actress 'Drew the Shortest Straw' (Exclusive)

"I don't know their reasoning," Lilley tells PEOPLE of producers' decision to cast Emily O'Brien as her character, Theresa Donovan, on the long-running soap opera

Jen Lilley is sharing her perspective on exactly how her Days of Our Lives recasting went down.

On Tuesday, news broke that fellow Days star Emily O’Brien will take over playing Theresa Donovan from Lilley, 39.

“Right now, outlets are reporting that I thought they were bluffing about recasting Emily,” Lilley tells PEOPLE. “That's not the truth.”

Instead, Lilley says she was somewhat blindsided by the network's sudden recasting. PEOPLE has reached out to reps for Days for comment.

Related: Deidre Hall Reflects on 5,000 'Days of Our Lives' Episodes, Including Scorching a Church the Day of Her Son's Birth

Lilley says her path to returning to Days started when her close friend and costar John Aniston died last year and she thought about Theresa coming back to attend his character Victor Kiriaki’s funeral.

“I was close to John Aniston personally as an actress, and also our characters were oddly close in a way that none of the other characters knew,” she explains. “So I was like, okay, that would be a really fun way to come back, kind of shake things up in Salem in a way that would fluster other characters and would be fun for the show. It would make sense for Theresa, and it would also make sense for Jen Lilley to honor John Aniston.”

So Lilley reached out to then-Days producer Albert Alarr about making it happen. “Albert was like, ‘Oh my gosh. So good to hear from you. I think that's a great idea. We haven't gotten to it yet. Circle back early next year, January, February,’” she recalls.

Lilley did, and in early 2023, she says Days expressed interest in bringing her back for a 12-week arc. Unfortunately, due to other scheduling commitments, including running her Christmas INC fundraiser, Lilley could only commit to filming for three weeks.

“At this point, my reps were like, ‘No, they haven't written 12 weeks. We have had so many clients on Days. They've never written a 12-week arc from the get-go,’” Lilley says of the show’s tight turnaround. “So we were like, ‘Well, we're sorry. I cannot come back for a 12-week arc.’ And they wrote back and said, ‘Well, at this point, the character's coming back, whether or not it's Jen, but we want it to be Jen.’”

Lilley understood. “I wrote them back and was like, ‘I totally understand. I'm so sorry that you guys got excited [by my return]. This was not my intention. If you have to recast, I really understand,’” she says.

Three days passed before Lilley says she heard back, and during that time, she came to terms with the fact that her character would likely be recast. “I go in the shower, I cry about it, I'm like, ‘This sucks. I just wanted to go back for John and now they're recasting,’” the actress shares.

But then Days got back in touch and allegedly asked if Lilley could come for three weeks, and she decided she could actually give them four weeks, under the impression that they would fit filming the 12 weeks worth of episodes into that time. Lilley says she consulted with Alarr, 67, about what he had in mind for Theresa’s arc “and I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh, that's really exciting!’” she says.

So Lilley headed back to the Days set and on her first day, met O’Brien, 38, while standing in line to take a COVID test.

“I was like, ‘Hi, I'm Jen Lilley, I play Theresa. Who are you?’” Lilley recalls. “And she's this sweet British girl, she's like, ‘I'm Emily O'Brien, so nice to meet you.’ I was like, ‘Who are you on the show?’ And she's like, ‘I play this character named Gwen,’ and I'm like, ‘Cool. Are we cousins? Are you good? Are you bad?’ We're catching up in the line. All the while, poor thing knows that she's the recast. At that point, nobody else knew.”

At the end of the second week of filming, Lilley started to suspect something fishy with her casting when she received an email informing her that she only had to film one day the following week.

“I was like, ‘That doesn't make sense. I have 12 weeks to do,’” Lilley remembers.

Lilley says she emailed Bob Lambert in the show’s casting department and asked directly if they’d recast her, and Lambert allegedly pointed her to casting director Marnie Saitta. Instead, Lilley went upstairs to talk to Alarr.

“I'm like, ‘You told me Theresa's going to do X, Y, and Z, but I just got the schedule for Monday, and it's only this one script. Is Theresa still going to do that?’” Lilley claims of what she asked Alarr. “He goes, ‘Yeah, no, no, no. Theresa's still going to do all of that. It's just we're going to go ahead and do it with another actress.’ That's how I found out.”

Lilley asked which actor would be replacing her, and Alarr told her it would be O’Brien, moving over from her role as Gwen Rizczech. The Hallmark Channel vet thought this didn’t make sense because, when she asked prior to filming if she should dye her hair from blonde to brunette to match Theresa, the show actually told her to go blonder.

“I was like, ‘But Emily's a brunette,’” Lilley recounts. “He goes, ‘We're just going to throw a wig on her.’”

According to Lilley, Alarr allegedly told her the show made the decision to bring in O’Brien three weeks prior to Lilley being informed. Lilley says she consulted with O’Brien after finding out and “just hugged her."

"I was like, ‘I'm so sorry. That must've been so awkward for you. I didn't know you've known for three weeks,'" she recalls.

Lilley says she offered to give O’Brien her phone number and to “champion” her recasting. “Because even if you're a tremendous actor, the fans will wreck you over the fact that you're the recast,” the mom of four continues. “They do not take recasts well."

As expected, Lilley says fans have been upset since the news broke. She, however, harbors no ill will towards the show.

“I love doing Days. I stayed way longer than I ever thought I would because I loved them so much,” Lilley says of her first go-around on the show, which ended in 2016. “So I was like, no love lost. I love you guys.”

Related: 'Days of Our Lives' Star Camila Banus Exits Long-Running Soap After 13 Years

Lilley also notes that Alarr left her “a really nice voicemail” after filming, in which he let her know that O’Brien would only be taking over for Theresa for the duration of the 12-week arc.

“That's not cool to do to Emily,” Lilley says. “I think Emily drew the shortest straw, honestly. I was like, 'That is the worst thing you could possibly do to a recast is be like, we're going to wig you and make you just walk through fire for eight weeks.' I don't know whether it was a budgetary thing or a scheduling thing where they just couldn't work the schedule out so everybody could do it. I don't know their reasoning. It's a little befuddling, but I still am really grateful that I got to go back.”

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