In a touching episode of Maurice Benard’s (Sonny, GH) mental health series, State of Mind, General Hospital’s Jens Austin Astrup (Kai) was the special guest. The young actor sat-down with Maurice and opened up about his difficult family dynamic and how he has been able to survive.
During the conversation, Jens explained that he lost his father at 15-years-old, when he committed suicide, explaining to Benard, “He was depressed for sure. I think it was a culmination of a lot of things. I think he had a lot of regret. I think he felt a lot of guilt. Life was getting too hard (for him). I think even money was too hard for him. We really struggled growing up, we struggled pretty severely.”
Jens shared a story as a youth of wanting a pair of tennis shoes, that his father couldn’t afford. However, a week later, he surprised him and bought the shoes for his son. Unfortunately, Jens had a biking incident where the lace of the shoe got caught in the the bike spokes and so they got torn up. When he told his father, he was very mad at Jens, which he recalled was roughly two weeks before his dad took his own life.
Later, Jens recalled his dad had connected with a an old high school friend on Facebook Messenger, shortly before he died and told the friend that he deeply regretted getting upset with his son over the shoes. The reason Astrup explained this is that his dad was really stressed about money at the time.
As for his mother and his sister, Jens explained that his mother and father got divorced about a year and a half before his dad died, and that they had a very rocky relationship. Sadly, after his dad passed away, his mom became homeless, so he and sister came to live with his great aunt and uncle and became sort of their foster children.
In another part of his family history. Jens explained how he and his sister recently reconnected and are back in each others lives after her years of drug abuse, incarceration and mental illness. He shared it has been a very rough go.
It is remarkable, as Benard noted during the interview, that Jens has become such a positive, polished and professional young man and actor. And after you watch this, you will have a whole new respect for Astrup.
Meanwhile, GH viewers know that Kai’s eyes are now wide open when he figured out how Drew (Cameron Mathison) is as duplicitous as they come, and how he ran a wrecking ball right through Trina’s (Tabaya Ali) family, which could add Kai to the list of suspects if Drew is about to be murdered. Stay tuned.
Now below, watch Jens explain his journey growing up and more on the latest edition of State of Mind.
