Actor Rob Lowe told the hosts of “Podcrushed” in an episode released Wednesday that leaving “The West Wing” was the “best thing” he ever did for his career.
Lowe, a verified Hollywood icon, starred in four seasons of the smash-hit political drama from Aaron Sorkin (the only good seasons of the show, which still don’t hold up). He played Sam Seaborn, and was written out amid rumors of salary disputes, according to Variety.
“Whenever I talk to actors who complain about, you know, their relationships on their shows, it happens — it happens in any workplace,” Lowe told the “Podcrushed” hosts. “You could be in an environment where people sandbag you, want to see you fail, don’t appreciate you, whatever it is.”
Lowe said that working on the hit show became “super unhealthy” and that he felt “undervalued” during his time on the series. And he’s probably right. Lowe’s character was ripe for incredible development, but he left just at the right time.
“Whenever I share my stories, people are like, ‘I will never share my own stories again,'” Lowe continued. “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.” (RELATED: Actor Woody Harrelson Poses In RFK Jr. Hat, Libs Lose Their Minds)
He went so far as to compare working on “The West Wing” to the abusive relationships he saw his children enter when they hit a particular age. “I could see them having first girlfriends and being in a relationship that was abusive and taking it,” Lowe said. “‘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. ‘It’s so popular, it’s so amazing, it must be amazing.’ 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?”
Lowe didn’t go deeper on the ins-and-outs of his time on the show, but it sounds pretty freaking horrific (just like the rest of Hollywood). You can listen to his full interview here: