Valerie Spencer
Valerie Spencer is a fictional character from General Hospital, an American soap opera on the ABC network, portrayed by Brytni Sarpy. Introduced as the niece of the legendary Luke Spencer, Valerie is the daughter of the late Pat Spencer. Upon losing her mother, Valerie relocates to Port Charles and moves in with her cousin, Lulu Spencer, and bonds with her husband Dante Falconeri. The two end up having a one-night stand, only for Dante to reconcile with Lulu and Valerie briefly dates Lulu's ex-boyfriend Dillon Quartermaine.
Storylines
Looking for answers about Luke Spencer 's mental state, his daughter Lulu and his ex-wife Tracy Quartermaine go searching for his estranged older sister Pat, and find her daughter Valerie instead. As she is held hostage by a gun wielding Luke, Valerie tells them Pat is dead. Luke ties Valerie up and threatens to kill her when he finds out she lied about her mother being dead. They struggle over his gun and Luke escapes leaving Valerie unconscious and she is discovered by Lulu and her husband Dante Falconeri. Valerie reveals that Pat is alive and living in a nursing home because she suffers from Multiple sclerosis and Luke has gone after her. Dante and Valerie find Pat at her childhood home in Port Charles with the rest of the Spencers only for their reunion to be cut short when Pat suddenly passes away. Blaming Luke for her mother's death, Valerie tries to kill him, but Dante talks her down.Valerie temporarily moves in with Dante and Lulu, and she bonds with him over being raised by single moms. Lulu becomes insecure about their growing closeness though Valerie and Dante maintain they are just friends. Valerie moves in with Lulu's brother Nikolas to give them space. However, Dante and Valerie become even closer when she starts working for the police department as an administrative assistant. Meanwhile, Valerie bonds with her aunt Bobbie when Bobbie tells her about their childhood. Later, Aunt Bobbi will encourage Valerie to go after her cousin Lulu's husband Dante. Valerie also moves in with her cousin and Bobbie's daughter Carly Corinthos.
On Independence Day, Dante and Valerie end up sleeping together after a drunken Dante is mistakenly led to believe that Lulu is having an affair with her ex-boyfriend Dillon Quartermaine while Valerie is grieving her mother. Valerie admits that she took advantage of a drunken Dante the morning after the tawdry one night stand. Dante and Lulu reconcile while Valerie agrees to keep quiet about the affair despite having feelings for him. Valerie later begins dating Dillon.
Valerie clashes with Lulu's best friend Maxie Jones who accuses her of going after Dante. They later reconcile and help Carly pick jewelry for her wedding. Valerie however is forced to leave the wedding early because she isn't feeling well. When Dante's father Sonny Corinthos gets shot, Valerie wants to comfort him and Dante's partner Detective Nathan West warns her to keep her distance. Nathan reveals that he knows about their tryst and calls her out about her feelings for Dante. He advises her to devote her attention to someone else and Valerie turns to Dillon who quickly calls her out on using him to cover her feelings for Dante. However, Dillon admits to using her to cover up his residual feelings for Lulu. They agree to keep each other's secrets and decide to remain friends.
Valerie is shocked when Dante later confronts her believing she is pregnant, thanks to Nathan. Valerie clears up the misunderstanding and promises she has no residual feelings for Dante. Valerie later announces that she is starting the police academy. Valerie is blindsided when Dillon intentionally shows video footage of Valerie's confession at Lulu's Halloween Party publicly humiliating all involved. Valerie assures that she and Dante are over and blames Lulu for her and Dante's one night stand. After the revelation, Valerie goes to Lante's loft to comfort Dante—although she gives the excuse that her visit is talk to Lulu. Lulu returns to the loft to find Valerie and Dante sitting next to each other and assumes the affair is still on. Later, new police cadet Valerie gets paired with Dante on a stakeout.
On Thanksgiving Day, Valerie drops off a pie for a distraught and grieving Dante who is spending the day alone having gotten separation papers from Lulu and has just signed them. Valerie again takes advantage of the situation to seduce Dante. The next morning, Lulu, who has decided to patch things up with her husband, shows up at the loft to find a fully clothed Dante and a towel-clad Valerie. Valerie immediately launches into a tirade, accusing Lulu of making Valerie slept with Dante. Valerie agrees to enter a secret hook-up relationship with Dante, after Dante tells Valeries that that is all he is capable of at the moment. After Christmas, Valerie asks Dante for another secret hook up, and Dante tells her that he is busy. When Valerie probes Dante, Dante admits that over the Christmas holidays, he and Lulu didn't fight so much. At this point, Valerie ends things with Dante, which produces a palpable expression of relief on Dante's face.
Later after befriending the mysterious Greg, who helped repair her car when Valerie was stranded on the side of the road, Valerie meets up with him again, but this time Greg is having car trouble and asks Valerie for a ride. Greg then kidnaps her when Valerie realizes he is actually an escaped fugitive Johnny Zacchara. Johnny leaves Valerie trapped in an abandoned cabin that catches fire and she is rescued by Lulu. Valerie discovers that Johnny has been working on Lulu's behalf and exposes her to Dante. While she does not press charges, Valerie can't forgive Lulu for almost killing her.
In February 2016, Valerie meets Curtis Ashford and after a game of pool, he asks her out. However, their Valentine's Day date is interrupted by his sister-in-law Jordan who warns Valerie that he is trouble. Curtis confesses that he has struggled with drug addiction in the past but is now clean. On their next date, Valerie and Curtis bond over losing their mothers and later team up to win the Crimson magazine contest and split the $1000 cash prize. They share their first kiss and Curtis convinces her to agree to another date.
In June 2016, Valerie graduates from the police academy and Curtis throws a surprise for Val and her fellow graduates.
Development
Casting and creation
Brytni Sarpy originated the role of Valerie Spencer on March 20, 2015. Sarpy had auditioned for the series several times over the years. The actress first auditioned for the short lived role of Taylor DuBois in the spring of 2013. While Sarpy made it through the casting process, she was ultimately too old for the role of the 16-year-old Taylor. In late 2013, Sarpy auditioned for the role of Jordan Ashford—for which she was too young because Sarpy would have been playing mom to a teenager. However, Sarpy made an indelible impression on the casting department. Sarpy was sure she'd land in daytime because she had actually auditioned several times for NBC's Days of Our Lives. "I kind of knew it was going to be one or the other" the actress said to Soap Opera Digest. In January 2015 the series put out a casting call for a "beautiful," "dynamic", and "charismatic" African American actress in her 20s for a contract role due begin taping in late February. When Sarpy returned to audition for the role of Valerie with casting director Mark Teschner despite the lack of information in the original casting call. Sarpy described the casting process for Valerie as "pretty quick" because within the next few days, she had a callback with some of the producers, including executive producer Frank Valentini. She then screen tested the following Monday and within "a week and a half," Sarpy had booked the role making General Hospital the actress's first major professional gig. Sarpy admitted that finding the "right" roles had been difficult, "but the role of Valerie Spencer, was effortless for me." Head writer Ron Carlivati explained that with the introduction of Valerie's mother Pat as the long lost Spencer sibling, the writers questioned if a new character of that age could "have an ongoing purpose on the canvas?" And out of those discussions came the character of Valerie. Carlivati thought, "why go to all that trouble just to kill of Pat?" Valerie's survival after Pat's departure "made it more interesting to and brought it into the present."In December 2016, Sarpy was downgraded to recurring basis. In February 2019, it was announced that Sarpy had joined the cast of The Young and the Restless. On March 28, 2019, it was announced that Paulina Bugembe had been cast in the role of Valerie, and had already had her first day on-set; she made her first appearance on April 23, 2019. Bugembe made her final appearance on September 1 of the following year.