Actress Sophia Bush recently opened up her departure from the NBC cop drama series Chicago P.D. saying that even though that she was working at her dream job that she knew she “couldn’t do the job anymore” by the end of the second season.
In May, Deadline exclusively reported that Bush was exiting the show after four seasons. Her departure was exclusively was of her own accord, but was rumored to be in reaction specifically to Jason Beghe’s “inappropriate behavior,” which NBC is currently investigating. In an interview with Refinery 29’s UnStyled podcast, Bush elaborated on her departure to a certain extent saying, “I don’t have to give everyone the specific breakdown of exactly why I left until I’m ready to do that.”
During the interview, she expressed gratitude for being on Chicago P.D., but at one point she sat her bosses down between the third and fourth season of the show and told them point blank, “if something really drastic doesn’t change, I’m leaving at the end of the year.” She added, “because I understand how the business works and how women are treated — I said, ‘I’m giving you not two weeks notice and I’m not coming in here throwing *** and breaking lamps and saying I’m never coming back. I’m giving you 23 episodes notice.”
Although Bush was straight-forward, she pointed out, “I’m giving you that much time. So there will be no conversation in which I was hysterical, emotional, in which I was being a quote irrational female or whatever you want to put on it. I’m literally sitting in front of you like cool as a cucumber.”
She continued, “If this has to be like a big swinging d*** competition, I promise you I will win. But know this now: if we’re not having a very different conversation by Christmas, then you know with 100 percent certainty in December that come the end of April I’m leaving.”
Bush said the conversation was liberating, but still did not detail any specifics about her exit — which she will more than likely talk about at the appropriate time.
Bush left her role of Detective Erin Lindsay on Chicago P.D. shortly after co-creator/showrunner Matt Olmstead exited in March. Bush responded to an Instagram user in October inquiring about her departure from the show saying, “because I wanted to. End of story.”