Cameron Kirsten

Cameron Kirsten (played by Linden Ashby) is a fictional character from the CBS soap opera, "The Young and the Restless".

In early 2003, when Sharon fled Genoa City after kissing Victor, she went to Denver to find herself. While in a bar, she met Cameron Kirsten. He instantly fell in love with her. He followed her up to her motel room, offering her wine all the while. They made love, and apparently, immediately afterwards he started abusing her, punching her in the face and trying to suffocate her with a pillow. However, before he could finish the beating, he fell asleep. Given this chance of escape, Sharon left Denver and came back to her family in Genoa City, Wisconsin.

A year after this happened, Cameron came to Genoa City to do a business deal with Newman Enterprises, Victor Newman's company, now turned over to Nicholas, Sharon's husband. While he was there, Cameron taunted and threatened Sharon, telling her that he would reveal to Nicholas all that had happened in Denver the year before unless she gave in to his wishes.

Toward the end of December, Cameron announced that he was planning a New Year's party and wanted Sharon to help him with it. Sharon said that she definitely would not do this, but, as Cameron had already told Nicholas about the party, there was nothing she could do. During the party, Cameron wrote down the address of a motel on the south side of Genoa City on the back of one of his business cards. He then gave it to Sharon, telling her that he wanted to meet her there after the party was over. Sharon felt that she had no choice but to do this, seeing as Cameron could tell Nicholas about Denver at any time.

After putting a long black hooded coat on to disguise herself, Sharon went to the motel, apparently known as the Seedy Side. Once she got there, she met Cameron and told him that he would not have her again, and that she wanted each of them to go their separate ways and forget all about Denver. Cameron, infuriated, starting to beat her up again, pushing her onto the bed. Sharon then kicked him and sent him sprawling to the floor. As he tried to get up, Sharon looked for any sort of weapon she could find. Seeing an opened champagne bottle, she grabbed it and walked over to Cameron. He looked up, horrified, to see the bottle she was holding, and brought up a hand to try to shield himself from the blow that would undoubtedly come, but it was too late. The champagne bottle came crashing down on his head.

It looked to Sharon as if he was dead, but really he was only knocked unconscious. So, Sharon dragged him out behind a dumpster in the alley. A few hours later, Cameron awakened, snow-covered and angrier than he had ever been in his life.

After he got up, Cameron returned, his face bleeding, to his 'stand-in Sharon' lover, Grace, who had been there the whole time. Grace then attended to Cameron's wounds, and right there Cameron vowed to take his revenge on Sharon for almost killing him.

And so, for the next few months Cameron put on makeup and pretended that he was his own ghost, haunting Sharon by looking into her windows, chasing her in her house on the Newman ranch and even kissing her. All the while, Sharon believed that she was going insane, seeing gruesome hallucinations of the man she thought she killed.

Finally, she couldn't take it anymore, and went into the sewer (where Larry Warton had put 'Cameron's' body after finding it in her car while she was trying to move it) to see the body, and make sure that Cameron was really dead. She actually did find a body, but it, of course, wasn't Cameron's. For some strange reason, Cameron actually had Frank Barritt, the biological father of Sharon's daughter Cassie, killed; apparently, for the sole purpose of driving Sharon out of her mind.

At the Mother's Day Brunch at the Genoa City Athletic Club, Cameron made the fact that he was alive known (he probably chose to appear on Mother's Day because the day had special meaning to him because of his late mother), surprising not only Sharon but also Nicholas and Nikki Newman, who, at this point, thought that Cameron was dead for sure, although the former had no idea that Sharon could have been involved in the disappearance (Sharon had told Nikki of her ordeal).

When asked about his whereabouts from January to May, Cameron made up a fake story about finding an old girlfriend of his in a bar and flying away with her to an island in the Caribbean.

When Sharon confronted him later on, Cameron denied that the events of New Year's Eve even occurred.

Later on in the month, Cameron arrived at the Newman ranch to give Nicholas a job offer; to be the Chief Operating Officer of Kirsten Incorporated. Cameron even said that sooner or later, he might hand the entire company over to Nicholas, as, at the time, he didn't think he would have any heirs. Nicholas said he'd think about the offer.

Upon hearing about this, Sharon decided that she would tell Nicholas about everything that had happened between her and Cameron. After telling him, Nicholas seemed more angry at Cameron than at Sharon, although it was she who had caused the entire problem.

Immediately going to Cameron's hotel suite, Nicholas demanded that Grace tell him everything. She said that she didn't know what he was talking about, and wondered why he believed the lies that Sharon had told him. Before leaving, Nicholas punched Cameron in the face, and told him that that was for what he did to Sharon in Denver.

Throughout the next few months, Nicholas repeatedly came to the hotel suite and tried to interrogate Cameron, but to no avail.Near the end of his stay in Genoa City, Sharon began to visit him and it was only then that he started to open up. During one of those visits he told her about his mother and father and his history (though only briefly), which he had never told anyone before.

When asked if there was anything he could do to help her escape murder charges for killing Frank Barritt (the body had been found by now and Sharon was the prime suspect), he said that the only way it was possible was if she would be with him the rest of his life; and fly in his jet to one of the islands he owned. That way, she couldn't be brought back to the United States to face the criminal charges.

Faced with no other choice ("Even you look good compared to that." - Sharon; "You know what? I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that." - Cameron), Sharon reluctantly accepted. She told Cameron that she would be ready to leave on the following night, but he said that that wasn't going to work. He told her that either they would leave then, or he would go alone. Although Sharon wasn't expecting this, she went along with him to the airport and boarded the jet. Nicholas, however, was following them and somehow boarded his jet.

At one point during the flight, Sharon attempted to kill herself by jumping out of the door of the jet. Cameron restrained her and told her that she had so much to live for and that her life had just begun. He comforted her and held her in his arms. Sharon finally calmed down and returned to her seat. Just as Cameron and Sharon were about to kiss, Nicholas rushed out of the curtain behind them and pushed Cameron to the floor. He delivered blow after blow to Cameron, who, at this point was too shocked by Nicholas's appearance to try to defend himself. Sharon jumped out of her seat and stood, watching in horror as the abuse continued.

Finally, Nicholas knocked Cameron unconscious and dragged him to the door, strapping a parachute onto him. He roughly pushed Cameron out of the jet, and he began his plummet to the ground. Meanwhile in the jet, Nicholas strapped parachutes to he and Sharon too, and they followed Cameron.

In the morning, Cameron awoke to find himself in a cornfield, where, incidentally, Nicholas and Sharon had also landed (although normal jets move too fast for this to be possible). When he woke up, Cameron had noticed a horrible pain in his right leg, but he didn't realize the severity of his wound until Nicholas tried to move the leg and Cameron screamed ("Aah! I've got a broken leg!" - Cameron).

Although they knew about this, Nicholas and Sharon forced Cameron to walk until they found civilization. If Cameron made any moves, Nicholas threatened to beat him with a large stick he found in the field.

As they walked down the dirt road, Nicholas and Sharon treated Cameron very cruelly, with Sharon even pushing him and telling him to move faster. Soon, they came upon a stand selling sweet corn, and there they called the police. Those police believed Nicholas and Sharon's story and put Cameron into a police car. Cameron Kirsten was last seen on the show being hauled away in that police car, with a look of cold fury and determination upon his face.