Roxy Balsom

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Ilene Kristen, in a still from One Life to Live.

Roxanne "Roxy" Balsom is a fictional character on ABC's daytime drama One Life To Live. She has been played by Ilene Kristen since 2001.

[edit] Biography

Roxy was introduced in 2001 as the wild, irresponsible mother of Natalie and Rex Balsom. It soon was revealed, however, that Natalie was actually the biological daughter of Viki Lord Davidson and Clint Buchanan. At first it was believed that when Allison Perkins had kidnapped the Buchanan baby in 1987, another child was returned and grew up to be Jessica Buchanan. Jessica began a tenuous relationship with Roxy, whom she believed to be her mother, and with Roxy's biological son Rex. But when a DNA test on Jessica proved that she was also Viki's daughter, the real story came out.

Viki's longtime enemy Mitch Laurence, who had masterminded the kidnapping, had secretly raped a drugged Viki around the same time she conceived a child with Clint. Viki unknowingly became pregnant with fraternal twins, one fathered by Clint (Natalie) and the other fathered by Mitch (Jessica). Dr. Walter Balsom, who had been one of religious leader Mitch's disciples, took Mitch's daughter during delivery, and Viki never knew she'd had more than one child. Mitch, however, wanted his daughter to grow up loved by Viki in the lap of luxury, and sent Allison to kidnap Clint's child. They replaced her with Mitch's daughter (who would become Jessica), and gave Clint's daughter (who would become Natalie) to Dr. Balsom and his wife Roxy. Walter later died, and Roxy turned out to be an irresponsible and absent mother for much of Natalie's childhood in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The character is known for her constant malapropisms, which most other characters ignore and find amusing.