Why Steve Carell Left The Office
On April 28, 2011, Michael Scott quietly left Scranton, Steve Carell said a tearful farewell to "The Office," and the world was never the same again. Sure, both the actor and his character dropped in for the series finale a couple of years later, but that was a nod to what had been rather than what was to come. In many ways, Carell's character was the glue that held the mockumentary sitcom together. From his antagonistic, blundering early years to his more complex (but still blundering) later career, Michael brought his employees together in shared love, collective loathing, and every emotion in between. And then he was gone.
So, why did Carell leave? At this point, the mystery of Michael's departure from the Scranton storyline isn't so much an unanswered question as an over-answered one. Different versions and rumors have swirled about at various times throughout the decade-plus since his final Season 7 appearance in the epic, two-part episode "Goodbye, Michael." We've gathered together the most compelling testimony from multiple actors and crew members, including, of course, Carell himself. Here's our comprehensive take on why the actor left "The Office."
Carell was a mix of emotions at the time
The varying accounts of Carell's final moments on "The Office" tend to tell different sides of the story. For instance, boom operator Brian Wittle and hairstylist Kim Ferry have come forward in the past to make similar claims indicating that Carell didn't actually want to leave. According to Wittle, the lead actor accidentally hinted that he was considering leaving in an interview, and it didn't elicit much of a response from the powers that be at NBC. The crew member explained:
"They didn't call and say, 'What? You wanna leave?' He said he didn't get any kind of response from them. When he realized he didn't get any kind of response from them, he thought, 'Oh, maybe they don't really care if I leave. Maybe I should go do other things.'"
Ferry said, point blank:
"[Carell] didn't want to leave the show. He had told the network that he was going to sign for another couple of years. He was willing to and his agent was willing to. But for some reason, they didn't contact him. I don't know if it was a game of chicken or what."
It's also worth pointing out that there was a changeover in executive leadership during this same time. As NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker was replaced by Bob Greenblatt, there may have been an element of "falling between the cracks" that made Carell's continued involvement with "The Office" even less certain. Whether it was through miscommunication, oversight, or some other backroom activity yet to be revealed, the deadline for Carell's contract renewal came and went, leaving him without a future on the show.
Carell has offered further insights into his reasons for leaving The Office
While crew members and corporate changeovers are helpful details, there's nothing quite like the source. Carell offered a first-person account of why he left in an episode of the "Office Ladies" podcast on March 8, 2023 (just over an hour into the episode titled "Interview with Steve Carell").
Carell described the difficulty of leaving at that point in "The Office." Filming the final moments of Michael Scott's tenure as Regional Manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin was difficult, emotionally speaking. But it was also a moment to celebrate — and a chance for his larger-than-life character to step aside and let others in the show's ensemble cast shine. As Carell put it:
"For me there was a joy to it, you know, when you're crying with joy. Cause it wasn't even sadness. Cause I was ready. I was ready to go. So I wasn't sad about leaving [...] It was time for other characters to step to the forefront and other storylines to be pursued. I think it was the right ... the timing was right, I think for everybody."
He added that his goodbye on the show also gave him a chance to have a victory lap of sorts, both as Michael with his employees and as Carell with his coworkers:
"Simultaneously, there's just a sense of joy for me that we had experienced all of this and we were getting ... I was getting a chance to take a lap with everybody. And the way those last two episodes were structured, it felt very rich to me to simultaneously be saying goodbye as Michael and us as friends in this moment of work together. But, yeah, it was a lot, it was a very emotional thing."
The emotions boiled over to the fans, who spent the next two seasons of "The Office" processing his departure. The show steadily dropped in ratings, for the most part, as the Michael-sized hole became more and more apparent. But by then, there was nothing left to do about it. Carell was gone, Mindy Kaling left shortly afterward, and so did B.J. Novak (both to much less fanfare, though). The show had moved on without multiple members of its core cast as it raced toward its final episodes two short seasons later.
"The Office" is currently streaming on Peacock.