Kristen Blake DiMera Black

Kristen Blake is the natural daughter of Rachel Blake and her husband. She has an older brother, Peter Blake. She has been married to Tony DiMera and John Black, though the latter marriage was invalid. Peter and Kristen's parents died while they were young. Consequently, they were adopted by Stefano DiMera. In the beginning, Kristen was good and saintly. She was a devout Catholic and a social worker. But her determination to hold on to John Black's love turned her into an evil, manipulative witch.

In the summer of 1993, social worker Kristen arrived in Salem. Already, she found trouble when some thugs tried to mug her. Fortunately, John Black was there to help her. Immediately, Kristen hated John. She claimed that she did not need his help and hoped never to see him again. Of course, she did. Kristen had gotten a job working at the newly-founded Horton Center, which was financially backed by John. In time, she learned to like John by working with him, especially when they worked together with the kids. John even taught Kristen how to play baseball. Finally, Alice Horton arranged it so that John and Kristen would spend the weekend at the Horton cabin on Smith Island. The two gave into their feelings and they made love in the shower. However, just when she began liking John, Kristen noticed that he wasn't exactly available; he was dating D.A. Rebecca Morrison. She tried to stay away from John, but he wouldn't let her. Eventually, Rebecca noticed what the two had going on and decided to fight for John. After having Kristen investigated, Rebecca discovered that she had lied about certain things regarding her past. At the Salem Place parking lot, Rebecca confronted John and Kristen with this info. But as they argued, Rebecca was shot in the shoulder by a sniper. After Rebecca left town, Kristen and John began to seriously date. But hints of trouble arose after John found a bloodstained wedding dress inside a trunk at Kristen's apartment.

Meanwhile, Kristen had flashbacks of her wedding, which had been halted by snipers. Soon after, shady Peter, Kristen's brother, came to Salem and warned her to stay away from John. Soon she began receiving phone calls from someone else who had something of value to Kristen. Finally, John found out the truth behind Kristen when he followed her to Smith Island and found her with a wheelchair-bound Stefano DiMera. Kristen was his daughter, she said, and she had just paid a ransom to rescue him from a kidnapper. Kristen was horrified at John's reaction to Stefano; he tried to strangle him. There was obviously nothing but hatred between the two men. Kristen struggled to find out why they hated each other, but neither was very specific. John blamed Stefano for many evil things, just as Stefano blamed John and the Brady family for causing him misery. Kristen was very confused but one thing remained clear: the fact that she was Stefano's daughter repulsed him. From that moment, John vowed to stay away from Kristen. After this, Stefano was placed in the hospital, and Tony came to Salem.

Peter encouraged Kristen to stay away from John, since that's what their father wanted; she obeyed. Kristen thought her father was a kind and generous person, and always followed his wishes. However, she also had to stay away from John because Tony, Stefano's son, was coming soon. Kristen was engaged to Tony, and it had been her wedding to him that had been interrupted by Stefano's enemies. John got over the fact that Kristen was a DiMera, but it was too late by then; she was determined to go through with her wedding plans. Stefano was dying of a brain tumor, and it was his dying wish to see Tony and Kristen married.

For months, Kristen was doubtful about her future. Although she loved Tony, she also loved John. One weekend, she went to the Horton cabin to sort out her feelings. John followed, and they argued for a long time at the cabin. During the discussion, she decided to marry Tony and she walked out. Unfortunately, Kristen proceeded to fall off a cliff on the island. John saved her, and her feelings were once again confused!

Meanwhile, the wedding date for Tony and Kristen's wedding was set for the beginning of December. Kristen continued to anguish between Tony and John. One fateful day in late October, she traveled to Smith Island to talk to Marlena about Stefano. Marlena had gone to the island to sort out her fears of Stefano. Stefano had told Kristen that Marlena had shot him once; this was something that Kristen found unbelievable, thus she wanted to know what sort of hatred could've driven a good woman like Marlena to shoot Stefano. While talking to Marlena, John showed up and Kristen decided to leave. Before being able to leave, Marlena went into labor. Kristen and John helped deliver baby Isabella Brady.

Nevertheless, Kristen was determined to marry Tony. But when the wedding came, she couldn't let go of her doubts. She knew that she still had feelings for John, and left Tony at the altar. When Tony later asked her what was wrong, Kristen came up with the pretext that it did not feel proper getting married while Marlena's baby was missing. Tony bought it, and postponed the wedding until Valentine's Day. In the meantime, Tony and Kristen dedicated themselves to locating Belle. But it was not Tony who found Belle, but John. Kristen had befriended a teenage girl at the Horton Center, Karen Foster, who had given up her baby; Karen told Kristen that lawyers were often middlemen in the black baby market. Kristen told Roman about this. Roman and John then tracked down a corrupt lawyer who also acted as a baby broker named Steven Miller. John and Kristen posed as Mr. and Mrs. Hooper and met with the lawyer claiming they wanted to buy a child. At the dinner where they would meet Nancy White, the child's mother, John and Kristen saw Sami and asked her to leave because they were in the middle of a police operation. When Nancy White never showed up, and Steven Miller was confronted, Kristen put two and two together and realized that Sami had been at the dinner to give up Belle! John and Kristen rushed to the airport and got Sami moments before she boarded a plane headed for Florida. Together, John and Kristen returned Belle to her parents during the Christmas Eve service at St. Luke's Church.

During this time, the police were trying to figure out who had shot Curtis Brown. John believed that Stefano had shot him because a hospital i.d. bracelet had been found at the scene of the crime; the morning after the crime had been committed, Stefano was found without a bracelet and had been issued a new one. Kristen refused to believe these "lies" about her father and pushed John away. In January, Stefano was released from the hospital. He was fully recovered from his stroke, and his tumor was no longer a threat. While celebrating at Chez Vous, Kristen witnessed Marlena drop down to her knees crying, begging Stefano not to hurt Belle. Kristen was in shock, and began to wonder if maybe her father wasn't as noble as she thought. A week later, Kristen attended Belle's christening. During it, Marlena confessed that she and John had had an affair almost a year ago, and he was Belle's real father. Kristen was disgusted by this. As a devout Catholic, she could not condone adultery, and permanently shut her feelings for John out.

The day of the wedding came at last. Before the wedding, John once again confronted Kristen and told her how evil Stefano was. Kristen began to have doubts AGAIN, and considered not going through with the wedding. But then John shot at Stefano's car, and it exploded. Kristen was distraught over her father's death, and horrified at John for having killed him. So, to fulfill her father's last wish, she went ahead and married Tony. Kristen did love Tony, there was never any doubt about that. As a married couple, they immediately began trying to conceive a child. John continued to pursue Kristen, but she remained hateful. Not only had he killed her father, but had slept with another man's wife. In her book, that was intolerable.

Months later, it was revealed that Stefano had, in fact, shot Curtis. However, it was ruled as an act of self-defense. Kristen refused to believe her father had been evil. Even after Fred Harris, the ex-police officer who testified against Stefano, mysteriously died in his jail cell, Kristen still thought her father had been a decent man. She also refused to believe he was alive, as John claimed.

As Kristen filed for probate, she discovered a plantation that Stefano had owned outside of New Orleans named Maison Blanche. She instantly fell in love with the home, which held a rich past dating from before the Civil War. The house, a history book said, had been burned during the war; legend had it that it had mysteriously reappeared at its present site. Intrigued by this beautiful plantation, Kristen traveled to New Orleans to see it. When she arrived, she met the caretaker of the house, a Creole woman named Celeste. Celeste was very cold towards Kristen; she even refused to show her the house. What Kristen didn't know was that Stefano was alive and living in the house. For fear that Kristen would find Stefano, Celeste drugged Kristen's sherry. A day later, Kristen woke up. She decided that it had been jet lag and went off to meet with the New Orleans Historical Society. She had decided to donate the house to the society to share its wonder with other people. She decided that before the estate passed hands, she would hold a cotillion to celebrate the occasion. Kristen invited her brother Peter, Bo Brady, and her best friends Billie Reed and Jennifer Deveraux to come to the cotillion. Bo was hesitant about going, but Kristen told him that it would be a very romantic place to propose to Billie. So he agreed and went.

Everyone at the cotillion wore Old South period costumes. It was a grand occasion. Unfortunately, two disasters stopped the party. First, a hurricane put a halt to it (it was an outdoor party). Secondly, the house caught fire and was burning down. But the real surprise for Kristen was seeing John, bearded and without a shirt, come out of the burning house carrying an unconscious Marlena. When Tony and Kristen encountered John, he told them that Stefano had been keeping them hostage in the basement of the house and had planned to brainwash John again. Kristen once again claimed her father was dead, and that he had been a good man. John proved her wrong when they all saw Stefano through one of the windows of the house. Horrified by the fact that John had been right about Stefano, Kristen took it upon herself to go into the house and search for some clue to his past. However, Tony thought it was too dangerous and went in himself. While he was inside, there was an explosion. He came out minutes later carrying a laptop computer. Unfortunately, he told Kristen that he couldn't see; the explosion had made him blind.

Over the next three months, Kristen began seeing John again behind Tony's back. Kristen and John renewed their relationship. By the time the great Blackout occurred in late August, Kristen had decided to divorce Tony and marry John. Meanwhile, Kristen and John also tried to crack the password Stefano had put on the computer. Finally, the night of the Blackout, Kristen called Tony. At the end of their conversation, Tony called her "Cara". When Kristen asked why he called her that, Tony explained that Stefano had called her that when she was a child; it means "Dear" in Italian. Kristen then decided to try that as the password, and it worked. But when she saw what was on the computer, she backed away in terror. John was a priest!

Upon finding this out, Kristen quickly broke up with John and tried to devote herself to Tony. However, she was extremely jealous when John began dating Tanya Hampstead, a snooty socialite who married men for their money. In addition to voicing her opinions about Tanya to John, Kristen also insisted that he accept the fact that he was a priest. John only thought it was another Stefano's tricks, even though another priest, Timothy Jansen, recognized John from seminary school. Also, John had been recognized as "Father Black" at Father Black's former parish. John denied his priesthood for quite some time, constantly asking Kristen to marry him. Finally, she convinced him to try out the priesthood. He dumped Tanya and talked to Bishop Andrews.

A sinister figure began to stalk Salem in November of 1994. Kristen was disgusted when she heard that someone had knocked the heads off of three saint statues at St. Luke's. Also, someone set fire to the Christmas presents for the children at the Horton Center. And finally, fire was set to the Christmas tree at Salem Place. Kristen tried to find out who this "Desecrator" was, but no one had a clue that it was Marlena doing all of this. Meanwhile, Billie and Bo were finally getting married on New Year's Eve. Kristen was a bridesmaid. She had also brought a famous French designer, Jacques Marcel, to Salem to design a wedding dress for Billie. During the wedding, a chandelier fell and nearly hit the bridal party.

Meanwhile, Kristen was very dissatisfied with Tony. She noticed that he lied to to her about many little things. He also desperately wanted to start a family. Although Kristen wanted a child, she didn't want to bring a baby into a marriage that was not working. Behind Tony's back, Kristen began taking birth control pills.

During this time, Marlena had started acting very strangely. Kristen, John, and Mike had become concerned for her. While Kristen was alone at St. Luke's praying for Marlena, she was chloroformed. John found her in the church naked, handcuffed to the altar, with red pentagrams painted all over her body. Kristen was horrified at what happened to her and asked John not to report the incident to the police; he didn't. What they didn't know was that Marlena was possessed by the Devil, and she had done that to Kristen.

After this incident, something worse happened. Kristen's car broke down outside of Salem. After she arrived home, Tony stormed into the house and began yelling at her because he'd seen her kissing John at his loft! Kristen was happy that Tony could finally see, but was perplexed by Tony's accusation. She told him that she had just gotten home after her car broken down on the interstate highway. Tony didn't believe her at first, so Kristen actually took him to the site where she'd been broken down and showed him the car's tire marks. Both of them, and John, were dumbfounded by this. Of course, it had been another one of MarDevil's tricks; she had taken the form of Kristen and tried to seduce John, knowing that Tony would see them. However, Kristen did tearfully admit to Tony that she'd had an affair with John after coming back from Maison Blanche. Tony forgave her and they decided to begin anew.

Tony and Kristen went to renew their vows one night. Ironically, John was the only priest at St. Luke's at that time. Nevertheless, he performed the ceremony. Shortly after it was over, smoke began to seep into the Church. Kristen, Tony, and John tried to open the doors of the Church but they were blocked from the outside. MarDevil had set fire to the Church and trapped all three of them in it. Thankfully, a passerby went to the Brady Pub and told everyone what was going on. While Caroline called the Fire Department, Lucas, Peter, and Bo saved the trio inside the Church.

Soon after this, Kristen's old friend, Father Francis, suffered a heart attack in her arms whispering the words "Satan is in Salem." Father Francis did not die, but Kristen felt the urge to make sense of what the old man had said. So she and John went to Father Francis' room at the rectory and retrieved a bundle of ancient Aramaic scrolls that Fr. Francis had been studying before his attack. While waiting for someone to translate the scrolls, MarDevil burned them. However, the Salem PD's crime lab was still able to read the remainders of the scrolls. They prophesied the coming of the Devil.

While this was going on, John and Kristen also managed to stumble into Stefano's penthouse. They'd been searching Marlena's room to see how Stefano had been able to kidnap her in spite of her state-of-the-art security system. When she finally saw Stefano some time later, she slapped him. "You are dead in my eyes," she told him. Yet, Stefano told her that he had just been concerned for Marlena; he told her to watch over her. So Kristen began to pay close attention to a wary Marlena.

In one instance, she decided to prove Marlena was possessed by throwing holy water on her; she'd read that possessed people were burned by the substance. She rushed to Smith Island, fearing that Marlena would try to seduce John. But when she threw the holy water at her, Marlena was just insulted, and Kristen was extremely embarrassed; MarDevil had emptied out the vial of holy water and filled it with ordinary lake water. After that, Kristen went to the hospital to check on Father Francis. Over him she found three Biblical scholars. They told Kristen about a prophecy that had been written in Aramaic scrolls thousands of years ago, foretelling the ultimate fight between good and evil. The prophecy read, "When the moon is covered by darkness, the stars will fall, and the Evil One will show his true power in the place of peace." The "place of peace," they said, was Salem; Salem is a derivative of the Hebrew word for peace, Shalom. This frightened Kristen, because a lunar eclipse had been forecast for the following evening.

The night of the eclipse was also the night of Austin and Carrie's engagement party. Kristen, more than ever, was convinced that Satan resided in Marlena. Three times she accused Marlena of being possessed that night. The first time, MarDevil caused a rattlesnake to appear before Kristen; it disappeared when John heard Kristen's screams. The second time, Kristen said the Lord's Prayer in hopes of bringing the devil out; although MarDevil was affected by the "bothersome prayer", she endured it, proving Kristen wrong once again. John then took Marlena home, and Kristen followed. After John left Marlena's place, Kristen confronted her. The Devil finally made its presence known to Kristen and knocked her unconscious. MarDevil proceeded to take Kristen to the roof, tie her hands and feet, and set her on the ledge. John rescued Kristen, who told him about the devil in Marlena. They went back downstairs to Marlena's, and found Stefano! The three of them decided to put their differences aside to help Marlena and went upstairs to her bedroom. They found Marlena levitating over her bed in demonic ecstasy. At that moment, Father Francis arrived and brought Marlena down with holy water and prayers. Then Tony joined the party and helped Stefano tie Marlena to the bed. Father Francis proposed and exorcism.

A grueling and seemingly-endless exorcism ensued for the next few months. Mike Horton and Caroline Brady assisted with it. During the final battle, MarDevil devilishly played one last trick on Kristen: she told her that Tony had switched her birth control pills with sugar pills. Soon after revealing this, Marlena's body gave up and died. Although Kristen grieved Marlena's death, she confronted Tony regarding the birth control pills. He admitted to the switch, and she demanded a divorce. They almost reconciled, but Kristen realized that Tony had lied about his sight as well as the pills. They began divorce proceedings. Meanwhile, Kristen was overjoyed when John walked into St. Luke's Church with Marlena during her own funeral. The Devil had faked Marlena's death.

One night while walking along the pier, Kristen was hit by a cargo net and she fell into the river. She would have drowned had Jack Deveraux not saved her. While being checked at the hospital, the doctors broke some terrible news to Kristen. They had discovered some scarring in her uterus which would prevent her from bearing children. The doctors advised her to get pregnant as soon as possible because, if she waited too long, she would not get pregnant. Desperate, Kristen went to John, who had been released from his vows, and asked him to marry her. He agreed, but only after she received a Catholic divorce. Kristen presented Tony with the divorce papers and, surprisingly, he signed them without any argument.

While waiting for the Pope to approve the divorce, Kristen and John dedicated themselves to charity. They organized an event at the Penthouse Grill called "A Night of Magic", featuring the Fantastic Theodore. John volunteered for one of Theodore's tricks, the Chinese Water Torture. John almost died during the act. Kristen suspected Tony of having sabotaged the act and told him that would never love him again. Thanks to Father Francis, the divorce process was speeded up, and Kristen finally received a Catholic divorce from Tony.

During this time, Kristen decided to keep herself busy by doing volunteer work once again. She was asked to produce a Shakespeare play at the local community center. Tony kept looming over John and Kristen while they worked on the play. Ironically, the play was Othello. Meanwhile, Father Francis kept saying certain things regarding Tony and John that didn't really make sense. Soon after, the priest suffered a heart attack that sent him to the hospital. In his hand, he clutched a man's cufflink, which later proved to be Tony's. Tony covered up with some story that Kristen bought. John, however, remained very suspicious of Tony. Some time later, Father Francis fell into a coma as he desperately tried to warn Kristen about something. No one suspected that Tony had been responsible for Father Francis' condition; Father Francis had been trying to tell Kristen that Tony was planning to frame John for murder.

Finally, it came time for Peter and Jennifer's wedding. He would marry her in the house where he and Kristen had grown up, in the town of Aremid. Kristen had been somewhat concerned about the idea of going back home, but put her concerns aside in order to make Peter happy. During the days before the wedding, Tony changed. He stopped being so sinister, but continued to be really weird. He left Kristen a letter at the Red Dragon Inn the day before the wedding, to be read after the wedding. Kristen didn't wait and went ahead and read the letter. It was a very morbid farewell, apologizing for all his errors. When she asked Tony what the letter was all about, he covered by saying that he was planning to leave Salem after the wedding. Kristen said that despite everything that transpired between them, she still cared him and wished him the best. In passing, Kristen commented on how thin Tony looked and asked if he was ill. "Yes. I have a broken heart." Tony was suffering from a blood disorder and was hiding it from Kristen.

The day of the wedding arrived. The wedding went off without any problems. But during the reception held in the garden, everyone heard a vicious fight going on inside one of the rooms. From below, everyone could see John choking Tony. Their fight then stopped. A few moments later, everyone heard Tony yell, "Don't shoot, John! Don't shoot!" from inside the room, followed by a gunshot. Upon breaking into the room (it'd been locked), people found a dying Tony laying on the couch with a bullet wound in his upper chest. When John finally learned what had happened to Tony, he denied having shot him. He said that they had fought, but that he'd left through the service door and that Tony had been fine. Meanwhile, Tony languished between life and death.

When Tony finally gained consciousness, he said that John had shot him. Of course, John denied it. But as Kristen kept watch over the injured Tony, her faith in John's innocence wavered. It seemed like Tony was going to survive, but his wound reopened and his condition worsened. Before dying, Tony whispered one cryptic word into Kristen's ear. "Beware". John was then arrested for Tony's murder.

Kristen tried to believe John, but the evidence against him mounted. For one thing, Tony had been shot with a nickel-plated revolver...the same revolver the Salem Police had given John when he'd been on the force; it had his fingerprints on it. Also, traces of skin were found underneath Tony's fingernails and DNA tests confirmed that was John's. And of course, everyone had heard the two fighting, and Tony's shouts. Despite her doubts, Kristen begged Peter, who was prosecuting John, to go easy on him. Of course, he did not, eventually seeking the death penalty. As the trial proceeded, Kristen's doubts grew, and they became a great obstacle for her and John, as Kristen became one of the witnesses who testified against John.

Over the Christmas holidays, the Aremid sheriff decided to allow John some free time. With his impending trial, he thought it best to spend time with his children, Brady and Belle. Of course, this meant spending time with Marlena as well. Kristen got slightly jealous, but understood that he needed to be with the children. During this time, Kristen and John seemingly worked out their problems. Her testimony in court had only been negative because of Peter's line of questioning. John knew that and forgave Kristen. Everything seemed all right, as John and Kristen spent one night dancing away in period clothing in the Aremid home along with Abe, Lexie, Bo, and Hope. But all of this was just a fantasy. Soon after, John was back in jail and back on death row.

In early 1996, the trial came to a dramatic close with one final piece of evidence coming into light. Before his death, Tony had made a videotape in which he expressed his fear of John. He said that he was afraid of being killed. Peter discovered this tape in Tony's safe deposit box at the bank and introduced it into the court, sealing John's fate. He was sentenced to death in the gas chamber. Before the noxious fumes were to be released, John mouthed the words "I love you" to Kristen. Just as John was about to die, Jack and Jennifer interrupted the execution with evidence of John's innocence. Tony had committed suicide and framed John for his death. He had been dying of a blood disease and had decided to seek revenge against John by doing all of this. He had recorded all of this in a diary, which Jack and Jennifer had found at the hands of the mysterious Lady in White of Aremid. John was set free.

But all was not well. The first thing John did upon being released was rush to Marlena's rescue. She had been kidnapped by Stefano that very night. After John rescued her, everyone returned to Salem. Soon after getting home, Kristen noticed a little something sticking out of one of John's bags. It was a farewell love letter addressed to Marlena! John had written it to Marlena the night before he was to be executed. In this letter, John proclaimed that Marlena was the only woman he could truly love. Kristen was destroyed by this letter. She tried to confront John with it but couldn't go through with it. In the end, she decided that John must love her, otherwise he wouldn't be engaged to her. She then hid the letter inside a book in the DiMera living room. But, things got hairy when John asked Marlena to move in with him and Kristen to avoid being kidnapped by Stefano again.

In time, Marlena found the hidden letter and was eager to tell John that she loved him. Kristen discovered that Marlena had found the letter and begged Marlena to keep quiet about her feelings for John. Kristen was afraid that John would leave her if he knew that Marlena loved him. Also, Kristen had recently found out that she was pregnant with John's child. She told Marlena about her delicate condition and assured her that if she lost John, she would lose the baby as well. For the sake of the baby, Marlena kept quiet. However, the hatred between Kristen and Marlena intensified with each passing day. Kristen would have to find a way to get "Doc" out of her life.

Meanwhile, Kristen brought the Lady in White to Salem and allowed her to live in her home. Laura Horton treated her with psychotropic drugs in order to make her more lucid, and the Lady began to show feelings for Peter and Kristen. One day, the Lady tried to commit suicide by jumping into the Salem River after an argument with Peter. When pulled out, her veil fell off, revealing a badly scarred face. After the Lady left the hospital, her identity came to light. Laura Horton put John under hypnosis because John felt that he'd known the woman. Her name was Rachel. As Father John, he had counseled Rachel when she was kept prisoner in Maison Blanche. This revelation shocked Kristen and Peter because their mother's name had been Rachel. However, they refused to believe that this woman was their mother and decided to keep their possible relationship to her a secret. More importantly, Kristen worried that Rachel knew that she hated Marlena and took precautions to keep her from talking to her. Kristen decided to give Rachel a drug that would cause her to loose her already shaky sanity in case she decided to talk to Marlena. Moments before Rachel ingested the drug, Peter stopped her after having remembered that Rachel really was their mother. Rachel, who had previously denied being related to them, confessed that she was Rachel Blake. Rachel tried to bond with Kristen, but the way Kristen was manipulating John and Marlena always came between them. Kristen successfully kept Rachel from revealing her devious plans to John, but saw her mother as a potential threat.

Go to Part 2 of Kristen's history

The character of Kristen Blake was played by Eileen Davidson from 1993-1998

Thanks to Dan Maron for correcting some details on Rachel Blake

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