11 Actors Who Said Goodbye To Their Long-Running TV Shows Before The Series Ended (And Why)

Patrick J. Adams left Suits because he felt like there wasn't much left for his character to do. He also wanted to spend more time with his family. But after being gone for one season, he returned as a recurring character for Suits' final season and has said he's open to reprising his role in the series spinoff Suits: LA.

🚨This post contains MASSIVE spoilers.🚨 

1. Patrick J. Adams left Suits after starring in the series as Mike Ross for seven seasons. He admitted he'd first thought about leaving at the end of Season 6 after Mike was released from prison and working at Pearson Specter Litt. He explained, "From a story point of view, I was a little unsure of what was left for him to do." He also wanted to be closer to his wife, Troian Bellisario.

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He added that when it was time to renegotiate his contract for Season 8, he stopped and thought about whether returning was right for his character. "I had this voice in my head that said that we've told his story, and if he hangs out longer, Mike is just going to be another lawyer on television," he explained. "That didn't feel right for him. It didn't feel right for where I was at in my life, either. I started having conversations with Aaron [Korsch] and we both decided [leaving] made sense, as sad and scary as it was. It just felt like it was the way to go."

However, Patrick did return to the series in a recurring role for the show's final season and is open to returning for the upcoming spinoff Suits: LA. 

2. At the same time, Meghan Markle also left after Season 7 Suits to fulfill her duties as a member of the British royal family. In 2017, she explained, "I think what's been really exciting as we talk about the transition out of my career and into my role is the causes that are really important to me that I can focus even more energy on."

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More recently, Meghan and Harry have both opened up about how difficult Meghan's final years on Suits were due to the constant paparazzi on set and script rewrites from the Palace. In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry wrote, "Meg packed up her house, gave up her role in Suits. After seven seasons. A difficult moment for her because she loved that show, loved the character she was playing, loved her cast and crew — loved Canada. On the other hand life there had become untenable. Especially on set. The show writers were frustrated because they were often advised by the Palace comms team to change lines of dialogue, what her character would do, how she would act."

3. Sandra Oh decided to leave Grey's Anatomy after Season 10. "Creatively, I really feel like I gave it my all, and I feel ready to let [Cristina Yang] go," she explained. "It's such an interesting thing to play a character for so long and to actually get the sense that she wants to be let go as well. [Cristina] wants to be let go, and I am ready to let her go."

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She also added that the decision to leave took a toll on her mentally. "I've gone through a lot of therapy over this," she said. "I started thinking about it because I had to prepare myself. I gave myself two years to emotionally let go. At the end of [Season 8], Shonda took me aside and said, 'What are your thoughts?' I said, 'I'm ready.'"

Sandra has never returned to the series and does not plan on it. However, in the world of Grey's, Cristina is still alive and well working in Zurich.  

4. Nina Dobrev left The Vampire Diaries at the end of Season 6 and shared that she'd only planned on doing six years of the show when she first signed her contract. "I've loved working on this show," she added. "It's been such a crazy, awesome adventure, and I've been surrounded by so many people who I consider family. I know this is a new, exciting step in the right direction for me, but it's going to be so strange not to be with them."

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She did end up returning as a guest star for the show's final season. 

5. Steve Carell left The Office after playing Michael Scott on the series for seven seasons. He explained that his reason for leaving was that the time "felt right," and he wanted to let the other cast members shine. "It was time for other characters to step to the forefront and other storylines to be pursued," he said. "I think it was the right… the timing was right, I think for everybody, but simultaneously there's just a sense of joy for me that we had experienced all of this and we were getting… I was getting a chance to take a lap with everybody. And the way those last two episodes were structured, it felt very rich to me to simultaneously be saying goodbye as Michael and us as friends in this moment of work together. But, yeah, it was a lot, it was a very emotional thing."

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He also returned as a surprise guest star for the show's series finale. 

6. Emmy Rossum left Shameless after starring as Fiona Gallagher for eight seasons. In a thoughtful social media post, Emmy explained that her reason for leaving was an opportunity to take on other projects. "Until Shameless came into my life 8 years ago, I led that kind of transient wonderful life of an actor," she wrote. "And I never realized how much I actually craved the kind of continuity this show has given me. And given all of us in the crew. Season after season, I'm amazed that our same crew comes back. And it's not just because it's a wonderfully written, wonderfully layered show. There are these real connections, real friendships that bring us back season after season after season."

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Before Season 8, several news outlets reported that there were contractual issues among the cast, namely that Emmy was making less money than her costar, William H. Macy. However, Emmy has not publicly stated that salary or the negotiations were the reason she left the show.

7. Anna Faris left the series Mom after starring on the show for seven seasons. At the time, she explained she decided to explore other projects but more recently said that it wasn't a "conscious" choice at the time. "I kind of took my foot off the gas, and I spent a lot of time with my son," she said. "It felt really good. It wasn't conscious, but sort of a sabbatical, I guess."

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8. Donald Glover left Community during the show's fifth season. At first, he cited his reason for leaving as being because he "wanted to be on [his] own." He later admitted that he quit the show because his "heart really wasn't in it." "I didn't leave Community to rap. I don't wanna rap. I wanted to be on my own," he said at the time. "I've been sick this year. I've seen a bunch of people die this year. This is the first time I've felt helpless. But I'm not on that. Kept looking for something to be in with. Follow someone's blueprint. But you have to be on your own."

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"I asked to leave [Community] 'cause my heart really wasn't in it. I feel like if I stayed there, I'd be doing my life a disservice," he explained. "Community is, I think, one of the best shows on television, but it's not mine... I just want to make dope shit from now on, on my own terms." He went on to create TV shows of his own, like Atlanta and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, while also working on his music career as Childish Gambino.

A film adaptation of the movie had been rumored for years before NBC confirmed it was greenlit in 2022. Donald has since said the script for the movie is complete and that he will be reprising his role as Troy Barnes, along with the rest of the cast. 

9. Reneé Rapp said she was leaving The Sex Lives of College Girls after the show's third season. In an interview with Zane Lowe, she mentioned she's much happier making music than acting. "I love it so much. It's like, I don't even care," she said. "And I don't know if that's because I've had different experiences on the other side because I've also had amazing experiences on the other side, but it just doesn't fucking matter to me in music. Everybody's like, 'Music is so psychotic. This business is crazy. Don't you wish you could just go back to not having that?' And I'm like, 'No. No. I am so much happier when I'm doing this.'"

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On a 2023 episode of Call Her Daddy, Reneé opened up about how her experience filming Season 1 was "terrible." "The first year doing College Girls was terrible. It was terrible," she said. "It sucked so bad because at the time, I was in a heteronormative relationship. I hated going to work, because I was like, 'I don't think I'm like good enough to be here. I don't think I can be here. I don't think I can be doing this.' I was like, 'Maybe I'm just trying too hard.' And then I would come home, and I would psych myself out, literally."

She added, "Also, I'm on a show [where] there are a lot of men around... There are a lot of gay men around. There are a lot of straight men around. There are a lot of older men around me on set. So I'm going through set, doing these scenes, and I'm also having gay men come up to me and be like, 'So are you, like, really gay?' I was like, 'Ugh!'... It really fucking pissed me off, and it made me second guess everything about myself." 

In a social media statement, she said she loves her character Leighton and that playing her "changed [her] life." Reneé will continue as a recurring character in a few episodes of Season 3 until her departure later in the season. 

10. America Ferrera anticipated leaving Superstore at the end of its fifth season, but because of the pandemic, but she left at the beginning of the series' last season, Season 6. However, she ended up returning for the finale. "I expected and hoped that the show would go on after my departure for many, many years, "she told Variety. "So it was definitely coming back sooner than I think any of us imagined. But at the same time, we knew that in the setup of how Amy left, it really lent itself to how she could come back."

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She explained that her reason for leaving was to explore other creative endeavors, and said, "At the time, I didn't know if Superstore was going to go on for five more years or 10 more years, who knows," she said. "So my wish for the show was that it just continued on and on and on and kept on going and that I could start pursuing some of the other creative endeavors that I had been building towards and that I'm starting to do now."

11. Finally, Mischa Barton left The O.C. after the show's third season and shared that she felt like her character's death was an “obvious choice” made by the writers. "[Marissa] had to go somewhere, and I felt that was the right thing for her," she explained several years after the series ended. She also opened up about some of the "friction" she faced with other cast and crew members, saying, “It’s typical that in these sets not everybody is gonna get along. There are gonna be clashes. There’s gonna be people who create rumors and make stuff up. I think I was very sensitive to that because I was so young. It felt like high school but in the real world and very elevated and very magnified.”

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