The Bizarre True Story of How Young & Restless’ Melissa Ordway and Justin Gaston Got Together: ‘We Got Murdered and Hung in a Tree Together — Very Romantic!’

When Melissa Ordway and Justin Gaston were introduced back in 2011, it was less a meet-cute than a meat cleaver! Let us explain…

The country singer’s record deal had just fallen though when he got a call to audition for a thriller called Escapee. “That’s where I met Melissa… ” he tells SoapHub, “… during the chemistry read on set. We hit it off right away.”

Their relationship didn’t just have legs, it had wheels, too. “When we started filming back in Louisiana, she didn’t have a car, so I drove her around,” he recalls, “and things moved quickly between us. We got engaged 14 months later and were married within two years of meeting.”

Mind you, their characters in the movie got a much unhappier ending. “The joke is that we got murdered and hung in a tree together — very romantic,” Gaston laughs. “But we did get pretty close during that scene, no pun intended.”

Since tying the knot in 2012, Gaston and Ordway adopted one daughter, Olivia, and had a second, Sophie. They even became co-stars again in 2020, when Gaston filled in as The Young and the Restless’ Chance Chancellor during his wedding to Abby Newman.

“I love working with him, especially on [the show],” Ordway tells Soaps.com. “We had these honeymoon scenes during which we were trying not to laugh. I remember at one point, he went to kiss me in a scene and did it so weird, not like a normal kiss, and I was like, ‘What are you doing?’

“We still laugh about that to this day,” she adds, “because he was like, ‘I don’t know! I got nervous!’”