Jack Is Coming Back? Matthew Ashford Drops Major Days of Our Lives Bombshell!

The year was 1987 when Matthew Ashford first walked onto the set of Days of Our Lives and breathed life into Jack Deveraux—a character who would go on to become one of Salem’s most beloved, complicated, and unforgettable faces. Thirty-eight years have passed since that first step. Nearly four decades of twists, turns, exits, and returns. And still, the actor isn’t done.

In fact, he’s just getting started.

Ashford recently sat down with Soap Opera Digest and made no secret of what he wants next. “It really is my hope to come back,” he said, the words carrying the weight of a man who knows his character isn’t finished telling stories. “I’d be happy to reignite some of the old days’ craziness at the Spectator.”

The Spectator. For longtime fans, that name alone conjures memories of chaos, ambition, and the kind of journalism that never met a conflict it couldn’t make worse. Jack Deveraux at the helm of that newspaper was a force of nature—part schemer, part truth-seeker, and fully unpredictable. And Ashford believes that energy is exactly what Salem needs right now.

His reasoning is sharp. He looks around at the current landscape of the show and sees something missing. “I think there are a lot of new young actors who haven’t found themselves yet,” Ashford observed. “The show hasn’t exactly figured out what they’re going to do with them.” And in that uncertainty, he sees opportunity. A chance for Jack to step back into the fray not as a relic of the past, but as a catalyst for the future. A veteran who can stir the pot, shake up the status quo, and give those younger characters something to bounce off of—whether they want to or not.

But Ashford isn’t just hoping for a return. He has a vision. And that vision sounds like music to anyone who misses the golden age of Salem’s most unpredictable newsman.

The actor sees his character playing a role similar to Vern, the late Wayne Heley’s iconic character who made chaos look like an art form. “Vern could do a lot of crazy things,” Ashford said, a knowing smile practically audible in his voice, “and I could do the same things.”

Think about what that means. Vern was never predictable. Never safe. Never the voice of reason. He was the spark that lit the fuse, the wild card that kept everyone guessing. And Jack Deveraux, in Ashford’s hands, could become exactly that again. A man free from the constraints of traditional storytelling, free to stir up trouble, uncover secrets, and remind Salem that the truth is never as simple as it seems.

But perhaps the most intriguing detail Ashford revealed is this: his return doesn’t depend on Missy Reeves. Jack’s on-screen wife, the beloved Jennifer Deveraux, doesn’t have to come back for Jack to walk through Salem’s doors again. Jack Deveraux can stand on his own. He has enough history, enough wounds, enough unfinished business to drive a storyline all by himself.

That’s a bold statement. For years, Jack and Jennifer were inseparable in the audience’s mind—a pair so iconic that imagining one without the other felt like a half-finished sentence. But Ashford is ready to write a new chapter. One where Jack returns alone, carrying the weight of his past but no longer defined by it. A man who can walk into the Spectator, sit down at his old desk, and start causing trouble before anyone has time to ask where his wife is.

The potential is electric. Imagine Jack mentoring—or more likely, tormenting—a new generation of journalists. Imagine him uncovering a conspiracy that everyone else is too afraid to touch. Imagine him standing across from characters who only know him by reputation, watching them try to figure out whether he’s an ally or a threat.

The answer, of course, is both.

Matthew Ashford has been playing Jack Deveraux for thirty-eight years. He knows the character’s voice, his rhythm, his darkness and his light. And now he’s ready to bring him back—not as a ghost of Salem’s past, but as a force that reshapes its future.

The question isn’t whether Salem is ready for Jack Deveraux.

The question is whether Salem can survive him.