Maurice Benard Supports Kirsten Storms After Barash Restraining Order Filing
maurice benard supports kirsten storms as Brandon Barash filed for a restraining order against his former wife, pushing their nearly two decades of shared history back into view. The filing adds a legal step to a relationship that moved from co-stars to spouses to co-parents after years tied to General Hospital.
Barash and Storms on General Hospital
Brandon Barash joined General Hospital in 2007 as Johnny Zacchara, the character who hooked up with Lulu Spencer, played by Julie Marie Berman, the best friend of Storms’s Maxie Jones. Johnny, Maxie and Lulu became roommates in 2008, and by 2009 Johnny had become Maxie’s official escort at Crimson events.
Storms later said the off-camera relationship stayed easy because there was “No putting on this fake front of me trying to be on my best behavior around him.” She also said, “He has already seen me at my worst behavior… And he still wanted to be around me. He had me smitten.”
December 2012 Turns Public
Storms said the couple’s December 2012 Christmas party was their “coming out party” because nobody knew they were together and they showed up there together. She added, “We were making out with each other the entire time.” That detail matters because the relationship had already moved from workplace familiarity to something openly romantic before the public saw it.
After Barash’s 2012 split from Natalie Hall, the pair’s friendship turned into a relationship that quickly became part of the show’s orbit. In 2013, they learned they were expecting a baby girl, and Storms said they conceived on a trip to Amsterdam to visit Anthony Geary.
June 16, 2013 Wedding
Barash ended his run as Johnny in May 2013, then married Storms on June 16, 2013 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Storms said, “We just kind of looked at each other and said, ‘Should we go to Vegas and get married?’” and added that they drove in her MINI Cooper after an ultrasound appointment and while Barash’s father was in Vegas for a poker tournament.
The newlyweds confirmed both the pregnancy and the marriage in August 2013, and Barash said, “It’s been the most amazing couple of months of our lives.” Their daughter was born on January 7, 2014, with Kelly Monaco and Chad Duell among the first co-stars to meet the baby.
April 2016 Split
Storms later said in 2014, “It’s kind of funny that we have a baby. We just talk about it all the time: ‘You know, we just used to hang out with each other in our dressing rooms at work and now we have a baby!’” Storms’s pregnancy was written into Maxie’s storyline, and in 2015 her real-life daughter briefly played Maxie’s infant Georgie Spinelli.
Barash and Storms said in April 2016 that they were splitting due to “the cliché irreconcilable differences” and were “splitting amicably.” That makes the restraining order filing a sharper turn: a private legal move now sits on top of a relationship that once unfolded in public, from set-side friendship to marriage and co-parenting.
