Kirsten Storms Reflects on “Days of Our Lives ”Star Drake Hogestyn’s Death: ‘I Feel Like It’s Not Real’

“I don’t feel like that’s even set in for me, really,” Storms said of Hogestyn’s September 2024 death

• Kirsten Storms reflected on the death of her TV dad, Days of Our Lives star Drake Hogestyn, in an interview with TV Insider
• Storms, 41, said Hogestyn’s death doesn’t feel “real,” adding that, “I don’t feel like that’s even set in for me”
• Hogestyn died of pancreatic cancer at 70 in September 2024

Kirsten Storms is reflecting on working with her former TV dad, the late Drake Hogestyn.

Storms, who worked with Hogestyn on Days of Our Lives from 1999 to 2004, opened up about her feelings surrounding his death in September 2024 at the age of 70 in a recent interview with TV Insider. 

“I think because I hadn’t seen him in a while, I feel like it’s not real that he’s gone,” Storms, 41, said. “He just was my favorite person there and a legend. So happy and always in a good mood. And prepared.”

“He did his 100 percent best job always. I was really upset when I heard he had passed. But again, I don’t feel like that’s even set in for me, really,” she continued.

Storms noted that she got to know Hogestyn even more personally during her time on the long-running soap, as she dated his son.

“I dated Drake’s son, Ben [Hogestyn] for a couple of years, and I got to spend a lot of time with Drake and his family,” she recalled.

Drake, who died of pancreatic cancer, was a staple on the show, playing the character of John Black for 38 years. 

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"This is a very difficult one for all of us," Days of Our Lives executive producer Ken Corday said in a statement to PEOPLE in 2024. "Hogey was the ultimate team player, and there are not sufficient words to express how deeply he will be missed. His impact on our show, personally and professionally, was profound and will forever remain unmatched."

At another point in her interview with TV Insider, Storms reflected on her time on Days of Our Lives as a whole, sharing that it was her first experience working at the intense pace that soap opera roles demand.

“That was a reality check for how hard actors work,” she recalled. “I had come from doing single camera projects and the Disney stuff, and I was thrown into 10, 20, scenes a day —  really thick script per day situation — working with people who have been doing it for years and years.”

Storms also specifically called out actress Deidre Hall, the soap opera veteran who played her mother on the show, for shaping her work ethic.

“Deidre Hall would not take any excuses, and I loved that,” she continued. “I wanted to show her I was capable of [doing the work]. It was one of the best learning experiences I could have had at 14.”

Storms, who marked her 20th year playing Maxine on the show General Hospital on May 23, told the outlet that leaving Days of Our Lives in 2004 was an emotional experience for her.

“When I left Days, I had a lot of sad feelings about it, just because I had grown a family there,” she said. “That was the longest time I had spent on a project, and everyone there was always so nice to me.”

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Prior to her work on Days of our Lives, Storms had risen to fame as a teen star playing Zenon in Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, which premiered on the Disney Channel in 1999. She reprised the role in Zenon: The Zequel in 2001 and Zenon: Z3 in 2004.