RUMOR OR REAL: VICTORIA ROWELL TO RETURN TO 'THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS' TO REPRISE HER 'DRUCILLA WINTERS' ROLE.

Avid fans of The Young & the Restless may soon have a reason to rejoice. There's a strong and promising chance that the beautiful and irreplaceable Drucilla Winters (played by actress Victoria Rowell respectively) may be headed back to The Young and the Restless later this year. The CBS soap has reached out to the actress to see if she's interested in a possible return -- but a rival soap is also reported to be interested in signing Rowell. Rowell appeared on Y&R for 17 years. Though she is believed to have fallen to her death nearly a year ago, fans may not have seen the last of The Young and the Restless' Drucilla Winters. While the network refuses to comment publicly, soapopera.com has learned that CBS is actively seeking a way to bring actress Drucilla Winters back into the fold. Rowell, who left the show in April 2007 amid reports of hurt feelings and frustration with the direction of the show, states that she is "open" to a possible Y&R return. "Before Christmas, through my representative, there was a dialogue with the CBS brass regarding [the] re-entry of Drucilla Winters," Rowell reveals. "The ball is in The Young and the Restless court. I think it's important that the fans know that I'm open to coming back and now we're waiting for an answer. That's absolutely the case."

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After leaving The Young and the Restless last year, Rowell gave a candid and uncensored interview with TV Guide Canada to clarify her reasons for wanting out of the number one rated daytime drama series. In the interview, Rowell lashed out at daytime executives for being "racist" and criticized Y&R's then-head writer Lynn Marie Latham (who has since been fired) for ruining the vision late-Y&R creator Bill Bell had created for the show. "When Y&R was at the top of its game, our soap boasted daytime's only racially diverse cast on TV," Rowell told TV Guide. "And now the show has what? Two black actors. [..] It's a no-brainer: we depend on our black, predominant audience to watch our show and make it number one but we're not going to support that population of audience, tell their stories, cast accurately, recognize us on the Emmy ballot? To [the network executives] blacks, don't count."

Rowell has also recently been spotted in and around the One Life to Live studios in New York. Those sightings have prompted rumors that the actress may be close to signing a deal to appear on the ABC soap. For her part, Rowell remains coy, saying only that she's had "several meetings."

On the issue of the Daytime Emmys, Rowell lashed out at the nominating process, calling the system "tainted" by popularity and in-house politicking. While Rowell has won an amazing 11 NAACP Image Awards, during her 17-year run with Y&R Rowell has only been nominated for a Daytime Emmy on three occasions. Since the Emmys adopted a new voting process in 2003, Rowell has not even received as much as a pre-nomination from her show. During her time away from The Young and the Restless, Rowell has traveled around the country promoting her book, The Women Who Raised Me: A Memoir. Rowell is also hard at work on her second book, Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva. Though the book title may sound like a juicy tell-all, Rowell insists that the book is a work of fiction.