Barbie Ferreira (Nope) is directly addressing her departure following the second season of Euphoria and the negative attention it garnered both in the press and among fans. Ferreira, who played Kat on HBO’s hit high school drama, describes the massive amounts of attention and intensive scrutiny of the details being reported around her exit “was really rough for [her]”, via The Hollywood Reporter.
While appearing on the latest episode of Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard, the actress opted to speak on her decision to leave the show, which had touched on some rumors that there were on-set clashes with showrunner and writer Sam Levinson (Malcolm & Marie) . “I don’t think there was a place for her to go,” the actress shares at one point during the podcast. “I mean, I think that there were places you could go. I just don’t think it would have fit into the show. I don’t know if it was gonna do her justice. And I think both parties knew that. I really wanted to be able to not be the fat best friend. I don’t want to play that and I think they didn’t want that either.”
Ultimately, she states that the choice was a “mutual decision” around her character Kat, “who I love so dearly.” Ferreira goes on to say that if an opportunity presented itself to play the character and depending on the material provided for her, she would have stayed on Euphoria as Kat “for as long as I was asked.” She feels secure in her decision to leave because of the struggle to find a continuation for the character, and that she felt that Levinson couldn’t relate to her character, but she could so she had to follow her own path.
Ferreira says that despite headlines, she and her former castmates were close and it’s her belief that certain criticism as well as sexist opinions around and about the series were at play in the spread of rumors about her exit being related to on-set behavior. She also explained that the reason she hasn’t addressed it more in-depth publicly is because she “got sucked into this drama that I never asked to be in.” And while she did her best to not add fuel to the fire, “it kind of has taken on a life of its own,” morphing into “chaos” that has made her look difficult to work with. “I don’t want people to think I do that kind of thing,” she said.
Seasons one and two of Euphoria can be streamed on HBO Max. It has been renewed for a third season but no release date has been announced.