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Matthew Morrison says he wasn't allowed to leave Glee after Cory Monteith died

16 February 2024, 12:27

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By Sam Prance

Matthew Morrison was originally scheduled to leave Glee in season 5.

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Matthew Morrison has opened up about Glee and how he was originally going to quit the show before Cory Monteith died.

It's impossible to imagine Glee without Matthew Morrison as Will Schuester. While the hit show was all about the kids in the Glee club, it also took time to focus on show choir director Will, his strained marriage with Terri and his will-they-won't-they romance with Emma. For better or worse, it's impossible to forget Matthew's renditions of songs like 'The Thong Song'.

However, Matthew has now revealed that he asked to leave the show in season 5, but then Corey Monteith passed away.

Matthew Morrison says he wasn't allowed to leave Glee after Cory Monteith died. Picture: River Callaway/Variety via Getty Images, Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock Photo

Appearing on the And That’s What You REALLY Missed podcast, Matthew said: "I actually was trying to get off the show. In season 5, I asked to be off the show, just ‘cause like, I’m no longer being used in the way I wanted to. No disrespect to the show. We were at a high, I was like, ‘Maybe if I get off the show, I could go do something else, go do a movie.'"

Matthew then revealed that Fox initially supported him. He said: "They agreed to let me off the show."

However, in July 2013, Cory Monteith tragically died and Matthew was no longer allowed to leave the show. Matthew explained: "Cory passed, and then they said they couldn’t do it. Because you can’t have the two main guys on the show [leave]. So yeah, it was an interesting time."

He added: "Obviously I understood, I was like ‘yeah, I get it.’ Trying to reconcile my own wants and selfish needs with the grief of losing an amazing friend, there’s a lot of just mixed emotions. But I’m a professional, I showed up, I did my job. And there was a good pay increase, so that worked, too."

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Expanding on how he felt about having less storylines in later seasons, Matthew said: "I think I took it personally, like I was bad, and that’s why my storyline kinda went. But then I look at the demographic of what the show ended up being, you know, it’s like, they don’t wanna see Mr. Schuester, they wanna see all the kids. So that made sense to me."