Sara Gilbert Is Leaving The Talk on CBS After 9 Years: 'This Is Hard to Do'
Sara Gilbert is leaving The Talk to focus on her career as an actress and producer, she announced Tuesday on the CBS show.
“I’m nervous. This is hard to do and something that I have been struggling with for a while and going back and forth. But I’ve decided that it’s time for me to leave the show at the end of the season,” said Gilbert, 44.
Her last show will be Aug. 2.
“I obviously love it here and like I said, this was extremely difficult. Last season, I did The Conners, as you know, and was also producing, and here, and I loved it and felt totally empowered, but also if I’m being honest about it, I think my life was slightly out of balance and I wasn’t able to spend as much time with my three kids as I’d like, and time for myself,” she added. “And as I’ve continued on, I’m starting to develop more things to produce and I’m having opportunities to act, and I’m just feeling like I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I was looking at the next six months and just thinking, ‘There’s no time.’ I’ll look at even just small things in my life — my youngest is 4 years old and I still haven’t made his baby book.”
“So just basic life things, but it’s difficult because this is a place that I love and a place where I’m extremely happy. I love the hosts, I love the crew, I love our staff, I am so grateful to the audience for letting me in your homes everyday. It’s been such an honor,” she concluded. “I’m not going anywhere yet, I’ll be here the rest of the season. I will come back as co-host, you’re not going to get rid of me. I’ll be around.”
She cried as she revealed her departure, with co-hosts Eve, Sharon Osbourne, Sheryl Underwood and Carrie Ann Inaba tearing up as well.
“I want to say personally you are an amazing woman,” Underwood, 55, told her. “You are a true example for others to follow. You created something very, very special with The Talk. God has given you a great talent and I think he’s opening doors for you to use that talent wherever you go. But more than that, you are an amazing mother, you’re an amazing partner, wife, you are just such a beautiful spirit and everything I think you touch, you’re going to be successful because you care about other people. We all wish you godspeed to greater things. You’ll never be forgotten.”
Osbourne, 66, thanked her friend through sobs.
“I want to say so many things to Sara. I’ve never worked with anyone for nine years before. I always get fired,” she joked. “This show has been on the air for nine years and we’ve had different ladies at this table but this, to me, has been the best table.”
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Gilbert helped create The Talk and has served as a co-host and executive producer on the daytime series since its premiere in October 2010. In 2016, she won a Daytime Emmy when the show was named outstanding entertainment talk show.
In addition to her work on The Talk, Gilbert has also been busy as an executive producer and star of The Conners. The ABC sitcom premiered in October 2018 but began months before that as an eight-episode revival of Roseanne. That show was cancelled in the wake of star Rosanne Barr’s offensive tweets about Valerie Jarrett, former advisor to President Barack Obama.
The series had a casting shakeup in January, when former Dancing with the Stars judge Inaba joined the panel after Julie Chen quit. Another original host, Chen decided to leave in September 2018 following CBS’ firing of her husband Les Moonves’ over multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denied.
Gilbert is married to former 4 Non Blondes frontwoman Linda Perry, The two, who wed in March 2014, share son Rhodes Emilio Gilbert Perry, 4. She’s also mother to daughter Sawyer, 11, and son Levi, 14, both from a previous relationship.
The Talk airs weekdays at 2 p.m. ET on CBS.
