Wait! Ian Somerhalder just revealed why he wanted to quit The Vampire Diaries in season three

Okay, if you grew up in the 2010s, you probably spent way too many late nights watching The Vampire Diaries and arguing with your friends over the ultimate question: Team Stefan or Team Damon? And as a proud Team Damon girly, it feels shocking to learn that Ian Somerhalder, the man who brought our favourite bad boy Damon Salvatore to life, actually wanted to leave the show way before it actually ended.

For anyone who somehow missed the obsession, The Vampire Diaries followed human teenager Elena Gilbert as she got tangled up with vampire brothers Stefan and Damon Salvatore, two immortal hotties who couldn’t be more different. The show was dark, dramatic, swoony, and absolutely fuelled by the central love triangle: Stefan vs. Damon, good boy vs. bad boy, safe choice vs. dangerous passion. Basically, The Vampire Diaries walked so The Summer I Turned Pretty could run.

And now, Ian Somerhalder has revealed that he wanted to leave the show in season three.

So, why did Ian Somerhalder want to leave The Vampire Diaries

At the height of the show’s popularity, Ian Somerhalder admits he was seriously considering quitting. The reason was Damon’s storyline in season three.

As Elena and Damon’s relationship deepened on screen, Ian worried his character was being softened into nothing more than a “love interest.” In a new excerpt  from the book I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries, Ian revealed that he was so frustrated with the direction of Damon’s arc that he actually sat down with co-creator Julie Plec to talk about leaving the series.

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“I was so upset about the trajectory of Damon, so much so that at one point I was sitting across from Julie in her office in Atlanta almost in tears, actually, my eyes were quite misty, and asked out of the show,” Ian shared. “I wanted off. Because I saw the writing on the wall. Damon was heading toward the love-interest role.”

For Ian, who was in his early thirties at the time and riding the wave of the show’s massive success, the thought of his edgy, complex character being reduced to a sappy boyfriend was frustrating. He admitted he considered leaving to pursue “something really cool and dark and edgy.”

‘You’re not leaving the show’

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But Julie Plec told him a straight no. She said, “You’re not leaving the show.” She basically reminded him of a few very important things: One, Damon was a core part of the show’s heartbeat. Two, he had signed a six-year contract. And three, the writers had a much bigger picture in mind. She assured him that Damon wouldn’t be “a one-trick pony”. She said, “This is a one-hundred-episode arc of a man. There are ups and there are downs. And there are times when he’s the villain, there are times when he’s the hero”.

That reassurance helped Ian trust the process, and ultimately stick with the show until its series finale in 2017. Looking back now, Ian acknowledges that staying was the right decision. “This journey has been truly incredible,” he reflected on Instagram in 2022.

Ian has since walked away from Hollywood, but he’ll always be remembered as the charmingly dangerous bad boy, Damon Salvatore.

The Vampire Diaries is available on Netflix. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.