The Bold And The Beautiful Relationship Timeline: Taylor And Ridge
For 35 years on "The Bold and the Beautiful," Ridge Forrester (played by Ronn Moss and then Thorsten Kaye) has found himself caught between two women.
For the first three years that the CBS soap opera was on the air, Ridge couldn't make up his mind between Brooke Logan (Katherine Kelly Lang) and Caroline Spencer (Joanna Johnson), but he ultimately chose Caroline. For the next 32 years, Ridge has bounced back and forth between Dr. Taylor Hayes (played by Hunter Tylo and then Krista Allen) and Brooke. In 2022, that's where Ridge remains.
Although love triangles are the bread and butter of soaps, it's rare to find one that lasts for three decades and still elicits passionate fan bases on all sides, but "The Bold and the Beautiful" has managed to accomplish that because poor Ridge really seems to love both women — and they truly love him.
So, how did Ridge and Taylor's relationship begin, and where does it stand as of this writing? Here's their complete relationship timeline.
Ridge and Taylor come together out of tragedy
Ridge Forrester and the other woman in his life, Taylor Hayes, met under tragic and sad circumstances just as Ridge learned his first wife, Caroline Spencer Forrester, was dying from leukemia. Caroline had tasked her rival for Ridge, Brooke, to tell Ridge what was going on because she couldn't face doing it herself.
So, one night, Brooke asked Ridge to dinner to gently inform him that his wife was losing her battle with cancer and that she had asked Brooke to look after him when she was gone.
A stunned Ridge could barely believe what he was hearing, but, then, Dr. Taylor Hayes walked in and introduced herself as Caroline's doctor and confirmed everything that Brooke was telling him. Although Brooke's heart hurt for Caroline, she thought this meant she could finally have Ridge to herself, but that was the furthest thing from the truth (via Soap Hub).
After Caroline's death, Taylor was revealed to also be a psychiatrist and was there for Ridge to talk to professionally, according to Soaps in Depth. Yes, Brooke thought she could have Ridge, but she forgot that she was already married to Ridge's father, Eric Forrester (John McCook). So, Ridge began to fall for Taylor.
Of course, it wasn't a smooth road to love because Brooke wanted to forget she was married to Eric.
Ridge sleeps with Brooke and ends up with Taylor
Brooke might have been a woman who slept with both father and son, but she was also a brilliant chemist who invented a wrinkle-free fabric formula for Forrester Creations that she named after herself, calling it BeLieF (a mashup of "Brooke Logan Forrester"). When Ridge learned that she created such a miracle for his family's design business, the pair celebrated by having sex on the lab room floor (via Soap Hub).
That little tryst put a wrinkle in Taylor and Ridge's burgeoning romance, but she eventually forgave him for his indiscretion, and, in 1992, the pair married. Brooke and Eric had broken up by then, and she tried to move on with others, but, when Taylor was presumed dead in a plane crash, Brooke moved in on a grieving Ridge as fast as she possibly could (via Soaps In Depth).
She finally got her wish, too, and Ridge married her. Of course, Taylor was alive, so Brooke might have invented a wrinkle-free formula — but she could not give herself a wrinkle-free life.
Brooke and Ridge trick each other, and he ends up with Taylor again
As this is a soap, of course, Taylor was not dead, and Ridge had to once again decide between her and Brooke. He was all set to stay with Brooke until he learned that the baby that resulted from their night on the lab room floor was really Eric's and not his.
Brooke had faked paternity tests, and, now, Eric — and not Ridge — had a daughter named Bridget. So, Ridge tricked Brooke into thinking he was going to propose to her but ended up remarrying Taylor instead (via Soap Hub).
Brooke finally had to resign herself to losing in this battle as Ridge and Taylor seemed to move on to a happy life together with their three children. First, Thomas was born and then Taylor gave birth to twin girls, Phoebe and Steffy. They were a happy family for several years, but it was not meant to last.
Death rocks Ridge's world once again
In 2002, tragedy struck thanks to crazy Sheila Carter (Kimberlin Brown). During a fit of rage, Sheila shot Taylor, who allegedly died in Ridge's arms, prompting him to go right back to Brooke, where he seemed happy for a time with their blended family.
However, it was no real surprise to fans when it turned out that Taylor was actually alive, and she returned to "The Bold and the Beautiful's" fictional version of Los Angeles in 2005. That's when Ridge's mother, Stephanie Forrester (Susan Flannery), stepped in.
She could never stand Brooke, whom she had dubbed that "s*** from The Valley" years before, but she loved Taylor. So, what is a good mother to do but fake a heart attack so that her son would marry the right girl to please his ailing mother?
That's exactly what Ridge did, but, when he learned that Stephanie had tricked him and that Taylor had cheated on him years earlier, he dumped his twice-dead wife, and they both moved on.
Taylor comes and goes, but Brooke remains a constant
Over the next decade and a half, Taylor would flit in and out of town. But Brooke never went anywhere and remained a constant in Ridge's life, even when Taylor and Ridge's daughter Phoebe was killed in a car crash.
By 2018, Ridge (now played by Thorsten Kaye) and Brooke had married again, and, by 2021, Taylor (now played by Krista Allen) was back to throw a wrench in things. She admitted that she had never truly gotten over Ridge and that their grown children, Thomas (Matthew Atkinson) and Steffy (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood), wanted their parents back together.
When Sheila Carter entered their lives again and decided that alcoholic Brooke should drink on New Year's Eve, she made sure Brooke got champagne and not cider, prompting Brooke to kiss her ex, Deacon Sharpe (Sean Kanan), according to Soaps In Depth.
When Ridge learned what happened, he turned to Taylor, and they shared some passionate kisses, but Taylor was smart enough to put the brakes on a reconciliation until she could make sure she wasn't just a rebound romance for Ridge.
That's where the story remains as we enter the spring of 2022, with a love triangle that has been a part of "The Bold and the Beautiful" for most of its 35-year existence.