Disney/Ricky Middlesworth; INSTAGRAM/Matt McInnis
General Hospital star Kate Mansi (Kristina) got engaged on July 3 to film producer Matt McInnis. On Instagram, the bride-to-be shared a photo showing off her gorgeous new ring, while McInnis posted a photo of the happy couple to his own Instagram account on July 4th, with the caption, “Apparently today is a holiday, but I think July 3rd was even better.”
Mansi was expecting a low-key holiday; she told Soap Opera Digest that her plan for the 4th of July was “heading to a cabin to get in some much-needed nature time with my closest friends!” And judging by the verdant surroundings in the photo McInnis shared, they did make it to that cabin — just with a little more to celebrate.
The duo’s relationship was already serious last summer; she shared her private photo album of her travels with Digest, which included going on an African safari with McInnis, as well as a visit to the East Coast to visit his family.
The actress has been married once before, and in October 2023, she opened up about her divorce as a guest on State Of Mind, the mental health-focused YouTube series hosted by her GH father, Maurice Benard (Sonny). She revealed that after she’d had to cancel her original wedding plans due to Covid restrictions, she had gotten legally married, with plans to hold a ceremony for close family and friends. “Six weeks before [that ceremony was scheduled to take place], he had a crisis of conscience and didn’t want to go through with it,” Mansi stated about her ex.
Wedding plans were once again put on hold while the duo attempted to work through their issues, but the following year, her husband asked for a divorce. “I was broken,” she admitted to Benard. “It was brutal. I felt a lot of shame; I felt like I was a failure.”
But, Mansi went on to share, she wound up discovering a new well of inner strength after the end of her marriage, and one day, while sitting on the floor of her shower, she came to a major realization. “Not only was I grieving the marriage I thought I was going to have, but the future that I thought I was going to have. In that moment, there was so much peace and so much freedom. ‘No one’s coming to save me. I’ve got to pick myself up from this.’ And that was the first moment of me really reclaiming myself.”
With that heartbreak behind her, Mansi found true love with McInnis, and last year they expanded their family to include a fur baby, Stanley.
Their engagement was quickly celebrated by Mansi’s GH sister, Kristen Vaganos (Molly), who has become close friends with the actress. On McInnis’s Instagram pic of the happy couple, she commented, “The best news to ever hit the internet !!!!!”
Congratulations to Mansi and McInnis!
INSTAGRAM/Kate Mansi
The actress showed off her gorgeous new engagement ring in her Instagram stories.
