Melrose Place alum Jack Wagner provided an update on his relationship with ex-fiancée and former costar Heather Locklear, revealing the twosome still keep in touch even after all these years.
“Just [for] little things,” Wagner, 65, exclusively told Us Weekly. “Birthday things or stuff like that. We stay friendly.”
Wagner, and Locklear, 63, played love interests Peter Burns and Amanda Woodward, respectively, on Melrose Place. After the primetime soap opera ended in 1999 — with their characters faking their own deaths and running away together, no less — the pair began dating in 2007 before getting engaged in August 2011.
The couple called things off in November 2011, with Wagner telling TMZ that wedding planning had taken a toll on their respective families.
Wagner — who appeared on The Bold and the Beautiful after his time on Melrose Place ended and now stars on Hallmark Channel’s When Calls the Heart — credited Locklear with being one of his most indelible scene partners over the course of his decades-long career.
“I think the success of [When Calls the Heart] has to do with Erin Krakow, our lead actress. I’ve always felt that way about any show that I’ve been on,” Wagner explained. “It was Heather from Melrose, it was Bold and the Beautiful with Katherine Kelly Lang.”
In turn, Wagner said that on-screen chemistry and vitality has allowed for a symbiotic relationship with viewers.
“When it trickles down from people who root for and love your lead actress and your lead actor, they invest,” Wagner added. “It is an investment. They feel like they know us, and we feel like we know them.”
Buzz about a potential Melrose Place reboot has circulated in recent years. In April 2024, Deadline reported that a deal to bring back the show with some of its original cast members — including Locklear — was in place. Since then, however, Wagner said he “has not heard much about it.”
Wagner said he would be open to reprising his role if the reboot ever actually gets off the ground, but insisted recreating the magic of the original series wouldn’t be a walk in the park.
“In my opinion, it takes real creativity,” Wagner argued. “Let’s say you take the core cast of Melrose Place and now that we’re all 25 or 30 years older, what would be the actual core of the story?”
Wagner, for his part, has a few ideas.
“You have to bring on young, new actors,” Wagner said. “It can’t be all about us. I don’t know what the longevity or interest in that would be. It would be more about a few of us probably starting the storylines out, letting them take place and then branching off into who their children are now or where they are.”
Wagner added, “I don’t think it’s easy, I really don’t think it’s easy to take such a huge show like Melrose Place and try to recreate it. It’s tough.”
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