Rob Lowe Calls Leaving ‘The West Wing’ the 'Best Thing I Ever Did'

Rob Lowe opened up about his reason for leaving hit NBC series The West Wing in 2002.

In an interview with Stitcher Studios’ Podcrushed podcast recorded prior to the SAG/AFTRA strikes, Lowe explained why his tenure on the hit show came to an abrupt end. After four seasons on the Aaron Sorkin political dramedy, he was feeling "very undervalued" and somewhat sabotaged by the crew. He explained that while all actors have issues with long-running jobs, his own experience was uniquely bad.

“Whenever I share my stories, people are like, ‘I will never share my own stories again,’” Lowe told hosts Penn Badgley, Sophie Ansari and Nava Kavelin. “They would make your hair stand up, and there's some of them I wrote. I shared some of them in my book, but I purposely didn't share half of the other ones because it would make the people involved look so bad that I didn't want to do it to them. So, I did not have a good experience.”

The Parks and Recreation star recalls trying to make the situation work, but eventually learned a valuable lesson from observing his own children’s early relationships. “[They] were getting to a certain age where I could see them having first girlfriends and being in a relationship that was abusive and taking it,” Lowe admitted. “‘She's the popular girl, everybody likes her, she's beautiful, it must be great’—all the things that people would say about making The West Wing to me…But I know what it's like, and if I couldn't walk away from it, then how could I empower my kids to walk away from it?”

“I walked away from the most popular girl at school, but I also knew that it was a super unhealthy relationship, and it was the best thing I ever did,” the actor concluded.

Lowe played White House communications director Sam Seaborn on the series. At the end of season four, Seaborn left D.C. to run for congress in Orange County, CA. Upon his departure, Lowe released a statement saying that it had become “increasingly clear, for quite a while, that there was no longer a place for” his character. However, the actor returned as Seaborn for two episodes in the final season, as well as a 2020 HBO special.

You can view Rob Lowe's full Podcrushed interview below.