John Abbott is a fictional character from the American CBS Daytime soap opera, The Young and the Restless.

Maria Arena Bell, the head writer for the series, brought him back as a recurring guest star on September 1, 2006.

He went to high school with his first wife, Dina Mergeron, as well as other prominent Genoa City residents: Stuart Brooks, Neil Fenmore, Katherine Shepherd, Joanna Manning, Gary Reynolds, and Suzanne Lynch, who Ashley's middle name came from.

In 1972, Dina left John to raise their three children: Jack, Ashley, and Traci, with their maid, Mamie Johnson, helping.

By the early 1980s, John began dating the much younger Jill Foster, but Jack tried to convince his father to stay away from her given her past marriages to Phillip Chancellor II and Stuart Brooks.

Even Jack decided to stay away from Jill, who in turn launched a sexual harassment lawsuit where she was awarded $10,000.

Mamie Johnson also tried to keep an eye on Jill, who quickly began another affair with Jack despite his romances with Diane Jenkins and his marriage to Patty Williams.

With this huge settlement, John and Jack hoped that Jill would stay quiet in order to protect Jabot's image.

John replaced Jack at the company with Traci's new husband Brad Carlton (Don Diamont), formerly an Abbott gardener.

After his divorce from Jill, he began seeing Joanna Manning (Susan Seaforth Hayes), a high school friend and Lauren Fenmore's (Tracey E. Bregman) mother.

John nobly ended the marriage in 1989, and Jessica, Jim, and Christine reunited as a family.

Then, Jack decided to take Jabot public, and Victor Newman (Eric Braeden) took over the company.

Stress from the divorce and the custody battle over Billy gave John a stroke, but he quickly recovered.

Meanwhile, Traci's daughter, Colleen Carlton (then played by Lyndsy Fonseca), was placed into John's guardianship when she was expelled from school for smoking marijuana in 2001.

Victor ended up paying Jabot $75 million for his commercial bribery scandal, and Jack was forced to resign.

He was unaware that her sons were Michael Baldwin (Christian LeBlanc) and Kevin Fisher (Greg Rikaart).

Ashley became the CEO of Jabot, but John fired her when she began working with her on-and-off lover, Victor Newman.

Tom eventually cornered Gloria, hoping she would give him money now that she was married to a wealthy Abbott.

In the end, Gloria went along with Tom's lie in order to stay in John's good graces.

Gloria was going to meet Tom in order to free Lauren, but John overheard her phone call.

Instead, they told her the wrong time for the ceremony, and they held a small family-only memorial for John.

After his death, the Abbotts were appalled to discover that Gloria was left 50% of John's billion-dollar estate.

In addition, news broke that Gloria's marriage to John was invalid because she never officially divorced Tom.

Gloria returned "home" to the Abbott Mansion to find her belongings in trash bags outside while Jack looked on smugly from behind the door.

He has often berated Jack for his shabby treatment of Gloria and his unethical behavior, but always reminds him of how much he loves him.

While John's spirit has occasionally manifested in ways that could indicate a supernatural origin, he has never known about Gloria's various misdeeds until Jack found out about them.

He tells Jack he needs to be with someone who can take care of him - Phyllis wouldn't want to see him home alone talking to a ghost.