Days of Our Lives Releases Freddie Smith and Chandler Massey From their Contracts

Ask any Days of Our Livesfan, and she or he will tell you Sonny and Will are the heart and soul of the long running soap. Well, it looks like the show is losing its lifeblood because Freddie Smith and Chandler Massey, the actors who made us fall in love with gay super couple Will-Son, have been cut from the cast.

Smith took to Twitter Wednesday to lament the loss in a vlog post and said, "Chandler and I were released from our contracts ... It was not our choice. [We] were looking forward to staying on and signing our contracts and keep the storyline going," he said. "I do understand that there's a lot happening with Days of Our Lives. For the past five or six years, it seems like every year we don't know if we're going to get picked up. And this year, with talks of streaming services, there's so much going on."

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Of course Smith is referring to whispers of a possible cancellation back in November when everyone in the cast had been reportedly released from their contracts. This was scary news for devoted viewers of Days of Our Lives, which premiered in 1965 and has since aired over 13,000 episodes. A week or so later, executive producer Ken Corday announced to the cast that NBC was picking up the soap for its 56th season. And the network's chairman, Paul Telegdy, confirmed the news in January at the Television Critics Association winter press tour.

"Of course Days of Our Lives is going to carry on," he said. "We love it. Millions of Americans watch it every week. I know there will be good news for the fans." Unfortunately at the time, Telegdy did not say which current cast members would be returning or not thanks to their expired contracts, an omission that now seems like an omen.

Smith said because the show is shot far in advance, he and Massey are going to be working on the soap for another couple of weeks and that their last installment will air in September. He also added that contractually, he can't reveal how Sonny and Will say goodbye but he hopes to have Chandler on as a guest on his vlog by Thursday and will post it on Twitter as a follow up.

TV Guide reached out to NBC for comment, but did not hear back at press time.

Days of Our Lives airs weekdays at 1 p.m. ET on NBC.