How Days Of Our Lives Ended The Epic Bo & Hope Romance

They were once one of daytime television’s most loved couples, but how did Bo and Hope’s Days Of Our Lives romance come to an end? Played by Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso, Bo and Hope Brady from Days Of Our Lives are a soap opera super couple. The term refers to fictional couples from TV and film who become hugely popular with viewers and whose relationship stands the test of time, despite many trials and tribulations. Supercouples are a big thing in daytime soap operas, in particular; General Hospital has Luke and Laura Spencer, The Young And The Restless has Victor and Nikki Newman and Days Of Our Lives had Bo and Hope.

Bo and Hope’s relationship spanned more than three decades and earned the Days Of Our Lives couple the portmanteau “Bope.” It was a case of opposites attract when their romance first blossomed in the early 1980s, with Bo introduced as a “bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks” type and Hope coming from the well-to-do Horton family. Despite a few setbacks early in their relationship (like Hope being kidnapped and forced to marry sleazy politician Larry Welch), the pair eventually tied the knot in a lavish ceremony and went on to have three children together.

Bo and Hope left Days Of Our Lives for a couple of years in the late 1980s when they embarked on a round-the-world voyage on their yacht but their relationship wasn’t all plain sailing (pardon the pun). The pair weathered many a soap opera storm – like when Hope was presumed dead but had actually been kidnapped by Stefano DiMera and brainwashed for years, or when Bo’s daughter Chelsea (conceived while the couple were estranged) killed he and Hope’s youngest son in a hit-and-run accident that Bo helped cover it up. While such dramas would destroy any normal couple, Bo and Hope always eventually reconciled – so what was it that finally brought their epic relationship to an end?

In the early 2010s, Bo left Days Of Our Lives to embark on a top-secret undercover mission and returned three years later to find Hope getting strangled by her new husband Aiden Jennings. Luckily, he saved the day and Hope’s life and the super couple reunited but their reconciliation was tragically short-lived when Bo was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. Soon after – in a November 2015 episode of Days Of Our Lives – Bo died in Hope’s arms in the park where they first met so many moons ago. In the end, only death could part them.

Bo and Hope’s romance may be over, but soap opera fans haven’t completely ruled out yet another reconciliation – even if Bo is dead. Days Of Our Lives has brought plenty of characters back from the dead before, so it’s not totally out of the realm of soap opera plausibility. However, considering Hope Brady star Kristian Alfonso recently left the show and Bo actor Peter Reckell now lives in New Zealand, a “Bope” reunion seems kind of unlikely. Luckily, there are plenty more Days Of Our Lives super couples for viewers to obsess over – John and Marlena, Doug and Julie, and Shawn and Belle included.