Ric Lansing is the half-brother of Port Charles' head mobster, Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard). The two men shared a mother, Adela Corinthos. However, Ric carried a deep sense of resentment in his heart when his mother left him behind and moved away with Sonny. In addition, Ric's father told him that Sonny had tried shoving his mother to induce a miscarriage while she was pregnant with Ric. This fostered a bubbling rage and hate in Ric, and by the time he had arrived as a grown man in Port Charles, he was out to get Sonny.

When Ric discovered that Sonny was the father of Alexis Davis' daughter Kristina Corinthos-Davis (then Lexi Ainsworth), he tried to get close to Alexis. While this relationship had started as one of Ric's schemes against Sonny, he and Alexis fell in love. They eventually wed and had their daughter Molly, who they named after the famous Titanic survivor "the unsinkable Molly Brown." However, once Molly was born, Lansing and Davis' relationship sank hard and fast.