Following Jeff Garlin's Exit From 'The Goldbergs' We Take A Look At Shows That Moved On Without Their Stars.
The Goldbergs will be moving on to Season 10 without embattled actor Jeff Garlin.
Garlin, who played Murray Goldberg on the first 9 Seasons of the show, was asked to leave the popular ABC series after a crew member accused the star of being "emotionally and verbally abusive" as reported by Deadline. The departure was a mutual decision made by both the show and Garlin, who is presently seen and heard on the present season through unused clips and past recorded dialogue.
This trend of writing characters off a show is nothing new. Over the years, several series have had to work around the departure of a major cast member. Here are a few of the more notable times an actor or actress vanished from their show.
Chevy Chase
Chase played the wealthy, abrasive older community college student Pierce Hawthorne on the hit series Community. Known for not being easy to work with, Chase eventually left the show due to creative differences about where his character was headed with the show's creator Dan Harmon. It seems The SNL alum was not phased by his being written off the show when he was asked about the incident while on CBS Sunday Morning,
"I guess you'd have to ask them. I don't give a crap! I am who I am. And I like where - who I am. I don't care. And it's part of me that I don't care. And I've thought about that a lot. And I don't know what to tell you, man. I just don't care."
Roseanne Barr
You know it's bad when the titular character was asked to leave their own show, but it happens. Roseanne, which was a huge series for ABC, so much so that the show came back with a continuation of the series years after its finale. After a few racist and insensitive Tweets the show's matriarch played by comedian Roseanne Barr was asked to leave the reboot.
The show killed off Barr's character through an opioid overdose, renamed the series The Conners, and it became another hit for the network which is still airing the show.
T.J. Miller
After the fifth season of the popular series Silicon Valley, series regular T.J. Miller, who played Erlich Bachman, was asked to leave by the show's creator Mike Judge. Even though Miller was popular with fans, his on set behavior made the comedian tough to work with and he was known for taking certain substances while filming. Judge discussed the decision with The Hollywood Reporter, saying,
"There are a lot of different ways you can find out somebody doesn't want to do the show anymore. And it's not fun to work with someone who doesn't want to be there, [especially when] they're one of the main people and you've got however many crew members and extras and people who are [not paid as well] and they're all showing up before 7 a.m., and then are just like, 'Oh, OK, we're not shooting today.'"
Jason Mitchell
Jason Mitchell gained notoriety with his role as NWA rapper Eazy-E in the biopic Straight Outta Compton, leading the actor to star in the Showtime series The Chi where he played Brandon, a chef who did his best to avoid ruining his life through the violent world around him. But after allegations of misconduct involving actress Tiffany Boone and show runner Ayanna Floyd Davis, HR was brought in to deal with his offensive actions.
Boone asked to leave the show, while Mitchell was allowed to remain on the series. It wasn't until Mitchell was asked to leave the film Desperados for making the film's actresses uncomfortable that he was asked to leave The Chi as well.
Chris Noth
Mr. Big from Sex and the City wasn't the charming guy he appeared to be on screen. Landing a recurring role on the Queen Latifa reboot of The Equalizer, his time on the show was short lived. Following a series of sexual assault alligations filed by multiple women. Noth's days on the CBS drama were numbered.
Noth has since denied the allegations which stem as far back as 2004 and again in 2015. He said in a statement,
"The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago are categorically false. These stories could've been from 30 years ago or 30 days ago - no always means no - that is a line I did not cross. The encounters were consensual. It's difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out. I don't know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women."
Charlie Sheen
No stranger to controversy, actor Charlie Sheen was written off of his hit television series Two and a Half Men after his 2011 drug and alcohol fueled breakdown. The actor known to play his on screen persona similarly to his real life self, slipped down a road of debaucherous behavior where he made wild claims about "Winning" and talk of "Tiger Blood" in interviews which became synonymous with the star, who even went on tour with his porn star girlfriends in some of the strangest speaking engagements ever.
His actions led to the series having to shut down production for a while when Sheen called the show's creator Chuck Lorre a "turd" and a "clown." 11 years after the incident, he reflected on how he regrets his past to Yahoo! Entertainment,
"People have [said to] me, 'Hey, man, that was so cool, that was so fun to watch. That was so cool to be a part of and support and all that energy and, you know, we stuck it to the man. My thought behind that is, 'Oh, yeah, great. I'm so glad that I traded early retirement for a f--king hashtag.'"
Jamie Foxworth
Through no fault of her own, child star Jamie Foxworth, who played the youngest daughter Judy Winslow on Family Matters, was written off the series after its fourth season. With the introduction of nerdy neighbor Steve Urkel, a popular character of the show, producers decided to save money by simply writing Judy off without any explanation.
The firing led the star to try her hand as a singer in two different girl groups and eventually she had a short lived career in the adult film industry. With a reboot of Family Matters in the works, her co-stars have been fighting hard to undo the wrong the show made by writing her off, campaigning for the character to return for the new series.
Isaiah Washington
Actor Isaiah Washington, who played Dr. Preston Burke on the long-running series Grey's Anatomy, was written off the series after starring on the show for two years. He was accused of using a homophobic slur which offended one of the guest stars, T.R. Knight, while arguing on set with co-star Patrick Dempsey.
Washington, who had starred in several Spike Lee joints, was asked to leave the show. Following the incident, he poorly tried to defend his actions on the red carpet at the 2007 Golden Globes where he ignorantly said,
"I love gay. I wanted to be gay. Please let me be gay."
This did not go over well with fans. Washington has since worked on several projects including The CW's The 100 and hosted a travel show for Fox Nation called Isaiah Washington: Kitchen Talk.
