Drucilla Winters was first introduced on Young and the Restless back in May 1990. Portrayed by Victoria Rowell, Drucilla turned out to became a fan favorite from the very beginning. While Rowell took a maternity leave in 1996, Dawn McMillan temporarily stepped into the role, and Kent Masters King also portrayed Dru in a few episodes in 2000 following Rowell’s departure. Despite Rowell’s return to Y&R in 2002, Dru’s story came to an end in 2007.
When Drucilla aka Dru Barber first showed up, she couldn’t read a book to save her life until private eye Nathan Hastings came to the rescue. Sure, she had some sibling rivalry with her sister Olivia, but they patched things up real quick. After a disastrous nude photoshoot for a magazine, Dru hit the runway as a legit fashion model. That’s when she met and fell in love with Neil Winters. Neil and Dru tied the knot and became a Winters, but things got messy when his brother Malcolm developed feelings for her.
One wild night on cold meds led to Dru mistakenly sleeping Malcolm thinking it was Neil, and when she found out she was pregnant, they kept it hush-hush about who the daddy was. After having Lily, Dru and Neil’s marriage went south fast because she wanted to get back to modeling, but he wanted her to be a stay at home mom. Eventually, Dru jetted off to Europe with Lily to keep her modeling dreams alive.
Then, Drucilla made a comeback in 2002 looking for help to raise her teenage daughter. Unexpectedly, they ended up being the ones to help Neil tackle his drinking problem. Dru and Neil reignited their romance and tied the knot in Japan. Together, they shielded Lily from further harm, especially when she got involved with Kevin Fisher. Dru also persuaded Neil to foster troubled teen Devon Hamilton. However, their world turned upside down when Malcolm came back to Genoa City and a paternity test revealed he was Lily’s real father. Despite agreeing to keep it under wraps from Neil, he and Lily eventually learned the truth.
After Neil ended their relationship and flirted with Carmen Mesta, Dru took matters into her own hands by publicly defaming Carmen and destroying her designer wardrobe. Things took a darker turn when Dru physically attacked Carmen, caught on tape by Phyllis Summers, who passed the evidence to Carmen, leading to Dru’s downfall. She lost her job, got arrested, but on the bright side, Neil dumped Carmen to be there for his wife.
Dru got slapped with probation and some mandatory therapy but turned her attention to launching Indigo, the nightclub she and Neil had been working on. But things took a wild turn, once again, on opening night when Carmen turned up dead and Devon got framed for it. As if that wasn’t enough, Dru started seeing Carmen’s ghost all over town, freaking Neil out enough to have her sent to a mental institution. Turns out, it was all part of a crazy scheme involving David Chow and Carmen’s doppelgänger twin sister trying to make Dru look nuts. And guess what? Jana Hawkes was the real killer, so Devon got off the hook.
later, Dru became Sharon’s maid of honor for her wedding to Jack Abbott but things went south when Phyllis found out about her affair with Brad. During a photoshoot, Phyllis was threatening to reveal it to Jack which led to a heated argument with Dru over the phone. In that middle of the fight, both Sharon and Dru fell off the cliff but only Sharon survived with some injuries. As for Dru her body was never found, except her jacket, and since then, she is believed to be dead.