Walker star Lindsey Morgan is opening up about what caused her to leave The CW show in its second season.
On this week’s I’ve Never Said This Before podcast, host Tommy Didario asked her about her departure from the show, which was announced on Oct. 29, 2021. At the time, Morgan cited “personal reasons” for leaving Walker.
In an exclusive clip from the podcast, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the actress revealed what actually caused her to leave the role of Micki Ramirez behind.
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“I had a spinal injury, which was affecting my nervous system and my brainstem,” she said on the podcast, adding that it caused her crippling anxiety and stress and made her unable to perform her job.
At the time of her exit, she noted in a statement that she had made the “incredibly difficult” decision to leave and was so grateful for “the opportunity to play Micki,” Cordell Walker’s (Jared Padalecki) partner and one of the first female Texas Rangers in the agency’s history.
In her podcast appearance, Morgan admitted that it was the hardest decision she had ever made because she had worked so hard to achieve her dream of becoming a lead on a TV show — or any project, rather — and she had to give it up.
“Up until this point, I had been manifesting,” the actress said. “I really wanted to be a lead. I wanted to get a promotion in my career journey. When Walker came, I was the lead female. That was my dream come true.”
Prior to her stint on the Jared Padalecki-led show, Morgan had been a recurring character on The 100, which wrapped in February 2020. By April of that year, Walker was slated to begin filming, so she was only going to have about a month off before beginning her next job.
She recalled that for the nine years leading up to the show, which was canceled after its fourth season earlier this year, she had been pretty much constantly working without a proper break.
“I was really blessed and lucky that I started working and didn’t stop,” she said. “But, looking back, I realized my mistake in the sense of, like an athlete, I was working, working, working out putting, outputting, outputting, outputting, but I wasn’t recovering. All my dreams were coming true, and I was a mess. Me, personally, was not in a good place. My anxiety was through the roof.”
Morgan continued, “I feel like I did not do good work. And looking back on it now, it was because I was so stressed out in my body — mentally and physically. I was a mess. I couldn’t figure out why. I have all of this responsibility on my shoulders, and I felt like I was failing everyone — and myself.”
Doctors at the time told her she had two options: Keep living her life constantly busy and stressed, working 16 hours a day, four to five days a week for none months straight, and get on medication she may need to be on for the rest of her life to cope; or she had to completely change her lifestyle in a way that led to minimal or no stress.
Not only was she dealing with all these health complications but also grasping the idea that she felt like she had failed.
“I’m somebody that really pushes themselves and has really high standards, and I never want to let anyone around me down,” she explained. “I felt a little bit like I let Jared down, or let the show down, and that was the hardest part for me, because it still makes me emotional, which I know is silly, because I was doing what I needed to do to take care of myself, and that’s more important.”
