It’s painful that General Hospital is writing off Kirsten Storms’ character, Maxie Jones.

Maxie Jones is starting a new chapter Down Under. During the July 23 episode of General Hospital, the ABC soap revealed what Maxie will be up to off-screen.

Storms is not currently part of the active General Hospital cast, according to a source close to the show. As for how the soap is writing off Maxie for the time being, Cody (Josh Kelly) tells Molly (Kristen Vaganos) that Maxie, Spinelli (Bradford Anderson), and the kids are moving to Australia.

Maxie also leaves her Deception shares to Michael (Rory Gibson), just as Lucy (Lynn Herring) and Tracy (Jane Elliot) were both vying for them.

Maxie returned to Port Charles earlier this year when the beloved character woke up from a coma.

The character hadn’t been seen on-screen in several months as Storms relocated to Nashville with her daughter, Harper Rose, whom she shares with ex-husband Brandon Barash.

Over the past several years, Storms has been dealing with health and legal issues. She had to undergo a craniotomy in 2021 and learned in 2025 she had an aneurysm on the right side of her brain.

In April 2026, Barash obtained an emergency restraining order against Storms, which he had filed in December 2025.

In June 2026, Storms gave an update on her future with GH amid what’s been happening off-screen. “Given what’s been going on, I can’t say I will feel comfortable heading back to Los Angeles and returning to work.

This has been an eye opening experience about the downside of my profession. My daughter is my entire life, she is (and always will be) my first priority,” she wrote.

A month later, Storms debuted her new brown hair and hinted at her future outside of Hollywood. “Despite everything that’s been going on in my life right now (…and I will be honest, it’s more than upsetting) – I still feel that the move to Tennessee was the best choice for me,” she wrote on Instagram.

“I spent years working nonstop and feeling envious of anyone who lived in ‘the real world,’” she admitted. “I’m proud of myself for handling the majority of that on my own…but that life became the ONLY thing I knew how to do. Or thought I was capable of.”

With Maxie only heading to Australia, there’s always the possibility of Storms returning to the role down the road.