It’s never easy to say goodbye, even if it’s a television goodbye. While no TV show can last forever – well, Law & Order: SVU is in the running – the cast doesn’t always stay as long. Many actors decide to leave their contracts. Some actors give the networks a long heads-up while others disappear, leaving the writers scrambling (see below!). The show must continue regardless.
May 2017 was the most talked-about exit. Sophia BushDecent to leave Chicago P.D.After season 4. She played the lead role of Detective Erin Lindsay on the NBC drama and was written out of the show with a cliffhanger – her character was offered a job in New York to join the FBI. Many believed this could have meant she would appear on. Law & Order: SVU – another show written by Dick WolfThis has done a crossover P.D. before – but over the years, it was made apparent that was not happening.
In multiple interviews since her exit, Bush explained that she went to her bosses between the third and fourth seasons and told them if things didn’t “drastically” change, she would be leaving at the end of the year. She spoke out about her decision in December 2018 while on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast.
“I quit because, what I’ve learned is, I’ve been so programmed to be a good girl and to be a work horse and be a tug boat, that I have always prioritized tugging the ship for the crew, for the show, for the group, ahead of my own health … My body was, like, falling apart, because I was really, really unhappy,” she revealed, before later adding she felt “ignored” and recalled the time she told a coworker, “I feel like I was standing butt-naked, bruised and bleeding in the middle of Times Square, screaming at the top of my lungs and not a single person stopped to ask if they could help me.”
She also referenced the show as “a consistent onslaught barrage of abusive behavior.” Bush noted: “You start to lose your way when someone assaults you in a room full of people and everyone literally looks away, looks at the floor, looks at the ceiling, and you’re the one woman in the room and every man who’s twice your size doesn’t do something.”
Scroll through the gallery to see more TV stars who left hit shows.
