Like many, Shemar Moore is grieving the loss of his former co-star and close friend Kristoff St. John.
“I’m raised an only child, but Kristoff is truly the closest thing to a brother and a brother’s love and a brother’s mentorship that I’ve ever known,” Moore told People of St. John, who died on Sunday at the age of 52.
St. John and Moore, 48, starred opposite each other on “The Young and the Restless,” on which St. John played Neil Winters since 1991 and Moore played his half-brother, Malcolm Winters.
Moore recalled his first days on the set of the soap opera when St. John took him under his wing despite Moore’s strong appearance.
“He didn’t have to embrace me the way he did. When I came in and was trying to find my way and he saw how scared I was, he saw how nervous I was,” Moore remembered. “He saw my six pack and all that, but he just saw me and he embraced me like a brother. If he hadn’t embraced me, I would have never got my sure footing in the beginning days.”
Moore credited St. John with helping launch his career — he’d go on to star in crime shows such as “Criminal Minds” and “S.W.A.T.”
“Without Kristoff St. John, there’s no Neil Winters. Without Neil Winters, there’s no opportunity for Malcolm Winters. And without Malcolm Winters, there’s no Shemar Moore. And if Shemar Moore didn’t get my chance to try on ‘The Young & the Restless,’ then I don’t sit here today with let alone this career or this life,” Moore gushed. “Not in this way. And I will give Kristoff, and I always have given Kristoff … I told him in the beginning because he embraced me the way he embraced me is the only reason that I have the life and career that I have.
“I would have life, but it would have been on a very different tangent and a very different lane. I will always give Kristoff that credit,” Moore continued. “I will always thank ‘The Young & the Restless’ for taking a chance on me so that I can have this career. Kristoff was there in the trenches with me.”
“Victoria Rowell, Tonya Lee Williams,” he added of his fellow “The Young & the Restless” castmates, “but Kristoff, day to day to day, he rooted for me. He didn’t have to. He didn’t have to, and many wouldn’t, but he rooted for me; he helped me; he held my hand; he said, ‘Stick with me, bruh, I’m going to show you the way and then you do what you’re doing.’”
St. John’s attorney, Mark Geragos, confirmed his death to Page Six on Monday. The LAPD later said a death investigation took place at around 2:05 p.m. for a possible alcohol overdose at his home. TMZ had reported that one of St. John’s friends discovered his body.