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From The House At The Top Of The Hill to The Bottom: What Happened To Reggie Hayes?
There's a regular phenomenon that occurs once an older show transitions back into the mainstream sphere; the views skyrocket and viewers get obsessed playing the ‘where are they now’ game. Girlfriends has been on Netflix for about a month now and following the release there has been a lot of chatter on social media about the toxicity in their friendships, the progression of fashion style, and where is William Dent now? After the cancellation of the show in ‘08, nobody has seen or heard from Reggie Hayes, the actor who played William for the duration of the show. Since the shows’ end, life hasn’t been peaches and cream for Hayes.
Just last week, 51 year old Hayes was admitted to the Hospital after experiencing shortness of breath and later finding out that he has congestive heart failure. Hayes did link his difficulty breathing to the amount of smoke in the L.A. air recently due to the wildfires, but he was held in the Hospital overnight as doctors tried to get his blood pressure back down. While his health may be at the top of the list, it’s not his only worry.
As much success as Hayes gained from being a long standing character on Girlfriends he’s stated that the last decade has been challenging. Since the show left the air, Hayes has had guest appearances on current shows like Black-ish, NCIS, and Criminal Minds and even starred in the movie Carter High, but none of these got him the same level of acclaim as Girlfriends.
“I had starred on this long running show but I wasn’t Matt LeBlanc or one of the other kids from ‘Friends’ who had doors opening for them after their show ended. Pretty much, I was just another guy.”
-Reggie Hayes
There have been talks of a Girlfriends spinoff that would obviously involve Hayes, but nothing has actually been done to move the idea forward. Without any new popular show or movie, Hayes didn’t have any new money coming in and had to halt the renovation of his home,
sell the land and move into more affordable housing. “I moved from a house on the hill down to a little bungalow in a sketchy area and people would come by: ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Those were pretty awful years. I made it work with my little residual checks for a year and then I ended up moving into my sister’s garage for six years.”
Hayes has attempted to work security at clubs and as a furniture mover but neither day job stuck because of his personality and his physical limitations.
Things have started to look up however since Hayes has found a nice place in the Valley where he lives with his roommates, and has even been finding a little more work. With Girlfriends on Netflix, he’s so excited that folks are talking about it again as it gives him a warm feeling.