In a statement on Tuesday, the actress said she is leaving the popular FOX medical series after seven years as Dr Lisa Cuddy, a hospital administrator who’d explored a relationship with House earlier this season. The decision followed much consideration and brings mixed feelings, according to Edelstein, who’s staying tight-lipped on exactly what forced her out the door.
“After much consideration, I am moving onward with a combination of disappointment at leaving behind a character I have loved playing for seven years and excitement of the new opportunities in acting and producing that lie ahead,” Edelstein, 44, tells TV Line.
Word in Celebsville has it that Lisa hit the road after series producers demanded that she accept a reduction in pay. Edelstein’s contract expired after the show’s seventh season, as did the contracts of cast members Omar Epps and Robert Sean Leonard. Epps and Leonard agreed to take pay cuts during negotiations, but Edelstein reportedly did not and instead chose to leave the show.
House stars Hugh Laurie in the title role of Dr. Gregory House, a cranky but brilliant physican. The show was recently renewed for its eighth, and likely final season, following weeks of suspicions about its future on the tube.
“The end of that season, right now looks like the end of the show. Well, that’s as far as they’ve got me for,” Laurie, 51, told the Radio Times Magazine in a May interview.