Whitley King Is Back! ‘Days of Our Lives’ Star Kim Coles Teases Her Dramatic Return to Stir Up Trouble

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Kim Coles will reprise the role of wacky Whitley King on Days of Our Lives on February 5, and she couldn’t be more excited about it. “It’s forever a place that is warm in my heart,” says the actress, who appeared in a dramatic arc during the summer of 2023.

Though Coles watched the show when she was younger, daytime wasn’t really on her professional radar before she signed on to portray the nurse who held Abe Carver (James Reynolds) captive and obsessed over her favorite soap opera, Body & Soul.

“There’s two things in my career I said I never wanted to do,” Coles explains. “One of them was porn and the other was soap operas. I was adamant about the porn, and I was really clear about soap operas because I’d heard the stories about how hard it was and how it moves so quickly, and I’m not built for that kind of acting. It’s a very specific skill and I just didn’t think I had it in me. So, when this opportunity came along, I was like, ‘OK, this is here for a reason. Let me take it head on.’ I actually hired a coach to get me ready for the audition, and the audition was mine to lose. All I had to do was show up and do a good job. So when they said yes, I was like, ‘Oh, wow, the other one is still on the list, but I can cross this one off.’ ”

By the time she wrapped up her run two years ago, Coles had a new appreciation for the genre. “It was such a great experience,” she raves. “The people are awesome to work with and to be welcomed and given the tools so that I could succeed, I fell in love with the process and was praying that they would bring me back. Then they brought me back for the Halloween episode [in 2023] and now I get to come back again.”

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This time around — spoiler alert! — Whitley will be revealed to be the culprit responsible for making trouble on the Body & Soul set by sending poisoned cupcakes and causing accidents on stage, even though she is in a mental health facility. “That this rich thing that was happening behind the scenes was set up for me to come in and cause mayhem again was quite a delight,” Coles enthuses. “I did ask, ‘Now how did she do this? She’s locked away.’ And they just said, ‘Stop asking questions [Laughs].’ They explained to me how it happened, and they made it make sense. There is a line that I repeated a couple of times when I first went on the show and then this time, like, ‘I’m a nurse; I know how to figure out my way around a medicine cabinet or whatever,’ so she’s actually brilliant and I like that we’ve given her that element.”

Coles also likes that she had the opportunity to reconnect with her former costars. “Oh, any time you get to be in any space Jim [Reynolds] is, it’s a beautiful thing,” she praises. “He’s a lovely man and he’s really funny and charming, so just to play with him is wonderful. Jackée [Harry, Paulina Price], who I’ve known for years, is just a hoot, and she’s easy to be around. I went to her room to run some lines, and we giggled and played.”

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Coles, like Harry, was well known in the sitcom world before she came to daytime but feels she has added some special skills to her resumé since doing Days of our Lives. “The way sitcoms are shot is completely different from the way that soaps are done,” she explains. “And to have those new tools in my tool belt is delicious. To come back and play something so dramatic and so pivotal to the lives of others made me feel like, ‘Oh, I could do anything.’ I still won’t do porn, and believe me, no one’s going to ask, but I can come and do this.”

She was also touched by the fact that she made a connection with the audience. “It’s my favorite moment, and I hope I don’t start to cry,” she begins. “So, for years it’s been, ‘Hey, you’re that girl from In Living Color.’ ‘Hey, aren’t you Synclaire James from Living Single?’ ‘Hey, you’re Kim Coles’. But there was one time my boyfriend and I were in the grocery store and for the first time someone said, ‘Hey, my daughter just said you’re the girl from the Days of Our Lives.’ I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve made it to the big time,’ because for the first time in years, it was a new recognition. I said, ‘Yeah, I am from Days of Our Lives.’ She was like, ‘Wow, what else have you done?’ I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, you have no idea that there’s a whole other career and this person’s daughter recognized me from this instead of anything else.’ It was quite a delight, and I felt like, ‘Now I have arrived.’ This is my 40th year in show business, so to be in this business and to have something new, I’m so grateful.”

When she’s not acting, Coles keeps herself busy working with others. “I’m a lover of story and storytelling, so what I do is I coach people on ways to use their story to write their books, to create their own products and goods and services,” she explains. “I help speakers, authors and coaches share their story so they can get their methods out into the world. I’m on all the socials talking about the power of story and storytelling, so I love teaching it.”

But she’s always up for a return trip to Salem. “I will come back any day,” Coles declares. “They didn’t kill me off, but we know that’s not a barrier at all anyway [Laughs]. I loved the experience; I loved the making of the show and the people on the show and to be a part of that just feels good. I’m a better performer and a better artist now.”

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