'Mean Girls' star Reneé Rapp addresses 'The Sex Lives of College Girls' departure

Reneé Rapp is graduating from "The Sex Lives of College Girls."

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the "Mean Girls" star opened up about her exit from the Max series. "The people in my life that I work with now care about me as a person," Rapp told the outlet. "And I think that is a difference from things I’ve experienced in the past."

The singer and Broadway star will leave as a series regular in the forthcoming third season of the show. In "College Girls," Rapp portrays a wealthy university student, Leighton, alongside Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur and Alyah Chanelle Scott.

Rapp announced her departure from the Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble-created series on X, formerly known as Twitter, in July 2023.

"A lot of queer work gets belittled—but playing Leighton has changed my life," she wrote at the time. "I love who I am 10x more than I did before knowing her. I hope she gave y'all a little bit of that too."

The 23-year-old previously opened up about her "terrible" experience filming Season 1 of the series due to figuring out her own sexuality as she portrayed Leighton, who's a lesbian, on the show.

During a March 2023 episode of the "Call Her Daddy" podcast, Rapp said: "The first year doing 'College Girls' was terrible. It was terrible. It sucked so bad, because at the time, I was in a heteronormative relationship. I hated going to work, because I was like, 'I don't think I'm like good enough to be here. I don't think I can be here. I don't think I can be doing this.' I was like, 'Maybe I'm just trying too hard.' And then I would come home and I would psych myself out, literally."

She added, "I was just in a panic constantly … I was so freaked out by the idea of my sexuality, not being finite or people laughing at me or me laughing at myself that I hated first year of filming."

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Rapp has since traded "College Girls" for "Mean Girls."

She is set to reprise her Broadway role of Regina George in the upcoming musical adaptation of the 2004 hit feature film, from executive producer and writer Tina Fey. Rapp told Vanity Fair on Tuesday she received the role when she was "jaded and really angry and sad and bullied. I was like, I hate the industry."

When Fey offered her the role of George, Rapp told the outlet it was "really exciting. I have a new start."

"Mean Girls" is out in theaters Friday.

Contributing: Patrick Ryan

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Reneé Rapp of 'Mean Girls' addresses 'Sex Lives of College Girls' exit