[3] Her father was a Disc jockey for a radio station in Asbury Park, where he met musicians like Bruce Springsteen.

[1] At the age of thirteen, she started taking the bus and train to New York to attend dance classes, studying with Phil Black.

[5] In the early 1980s, Reeves (then known as Melissa Brennan) began acting in television commercials to help pay for her dance classes.

[6] Reeves moved to Los Angeles in 1984, when she was cast as Jade Perkins on the NBC soap opera Santa Barbara.

[7] A month after leaving Santa Barbara, Reeves was cast as Jennifer Horton on the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives.

[10] In 1991, Reeves and Ashford won a Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Super Couple: Daytime.

[15] In 1992, Reeves was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series.

[16] Reeves played Jennifer Horton Deveraux in the Days of Our Lives television film One Stormy Night (1992).

"[21] Soap Opera Digest reported that Reeves leaving Days disrupted plans for a spinoff involving her character, Jennifer.

Kimberley Simms, Jessica Tuck, and Karen Witter had reportedly been considered to replace Reeves.

The lawsuit was settled out of court with Reeves paying an unspecified sum, which Days Executive Producer Ken Corday donated to pediatric HIV/AIDS research.

Reeves was unhappy with her storyline and she wanted to move to Nashville, Tennessee, where her husband works as a country musician.

[30] On September 15, 2020, it was announced that Reeves had opted not to return to the role when filming began again after a hiatus brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This followed criticism Reeves received from some fans, as well as her co-stars Lamon Archey and Linsey Godfrey, for 'liking' social media posts by conservative commentator Candace Owens which denounced the Black Lives Matter movement.