‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ Producers Blame Production Halt on ‘False Positive’ COVID-19 Tests Returned by Lab

“The Bold and the Beautiful” was forced to put a brief stopper in production last week, in order to upgrade its COVID-19 testing capacities to accommodate  “the large volume of testing needed.”

Now, the long-running CBS soap’s producer Bell-Phillip Television has issued a statement blaming the production delays on the testing lab provided by TV City, where the series shoots, which returned “several false positive” results. The statement categorically denies that any of the cast and crew tested were confirmed to be positive for COVID-19, and says that it will switch to a new lab for testing going forward.

Production was supposed to resume today, but the plan is instead to start again June 24, per a spokesperson for Bell-Phillip TV.

“The Health Department had some additional questions about the lab TV City provided ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ with last week, which produced several false positives,” said the spokesperson. “Bell-Phillip Television changed labs and resolved all problems.  We have not had, nor do we have, any positive COVID-19 cases and are not ‘shut down,’ but we needed an additional day to provide them with requested information.”

Some of the safety precautions the show is taking include testing cast and crew frequently while shooting, having an on-set coordinator who to oversee safety for the cast and crew, requiring the cast and crew to wear masks when they’re not on camera, and staggering the amount of people on set.

Production on Season 34 had previously shut down in mid-March, along with every other scripted and unscripted series across the country, and the show has been airing reruns since the final episode it still had in the can aired on April 23.