The shocking move to end CBS’s highly-rated “Young Sheldon” was one that EPs Chuck Lorre, Steve Molaro and Steve Holland didn’t take lightly, but ultimately decided was the best decision for the series creatively.
In fact, the show’s success is what easily pushed forward the greenlight for spinoff “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” which debuted just months after “Young Sheldon” wrapped up its seven-season run.
But for “Young Sheldon” star Annie Potts, who was not set to be in the main cast of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” ending the show at the peak of its popularity was a “stupid business move,” or so she said in an interview at the time.
Her remarks stirred up some trouble at CBS, resulting in Lorre becoming a bit of a mediator between Potts and the network.
In “Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw’s-Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy,” author Jessica Radloff, who hosts “The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast” for HBO Max and Warner Bros. TV, takes readers inside just how much Potts’ comments ruffled feathers, straight from Lorre and Holland, and why Potts felt the need to speak her truth in the first place.
Radloff’s book releases Oct. 20 via Grand Central Publishing, but TheWrap has the exclusive excerpt on the fallout of Pott’s comments below.
As the writers were writing the final scripts for Young Sheldon, the show was finding a new audience on Netflix, and its popularity was soaring. So, when Annie Potts and Iain Armitage did an interview with journalist Jim Halterman for Variety in April 2024 to talk about wrapping up the series, Potts gave her honest and unfiltered thoughts on the show coming to an end, saying, “I was shocked.[We’re] the number one show on network TV, number one on Netflix. We’re, I think, all that people watch on TikTok besides a couple of recipes for pasta. It just seemed like such a stupid business move. Forgive me, but I don’t know. If a show is starting to drag or lag or have a lack of stories or whatever, then you kind of see it coming. We were totally ambushed by this. I was, anyway.”
Annie Potts: I guess other people got hold of that and I got a call from Chuck. I was just about to take off in an airplane, and I said, “I can’t talk, I’m on my way back to L.A., but I’ll be there in four hours and we can talk then.” I had four hours to think about what Chuck was calling me about. I thought, “Oh! They want me to be a part of the spin-off!” [Laughs] Oh, silly me.
Chuck Lorre: That’s funny. She wasn’t necessarily wrong, though. She has been a wonderful part of Georgie & Mandy, so I hope that carries on. I just love working with her. The woman is one of a kind.
But sadly, that wasn’t the reason for Lorre’s call.
Annie Potts: He said, “CBS has asked me to call you and tell you that their feelings are hurt that you said that it was ‘a stupid business move,’ and I just want you to know it was our decision. We were creatively done with it.” And I said, “Well, I hear you. It’s tough for me to try and comprehend that somebody would be done with something when it’s at its apex of popularity. So my bad, really.” Because he was trying to explain to me that they had tried to say that they were done, and I had not read that room correctly. And I said, “So what you’re telling me is that CBS has asked you to call me and tell me to cease and desist?” And I think I laughed a little bit, and he said, “Uh, yeah.” [Laughs] I’m still laughing about it, because to imagine a network could get their feelings hurt. I was like, “How the f–k do you think I feel?! I just lost my livelihood.” My feelings were a little hurt, too, excuse me, huge corporation. I’m just a small little corporation, and I was enjoying doing that work, and I was sad to be done with it. Lance was always prepared for it; he always knew he was going to be killed. [Laughs] But the rest of us thought we had a stay of execution by being so popular. Obviously we were wrong. Anyway, I have enough experience and enough maturity . . . obviously not things like “I think it was a stupid business move.” [Laughs] Although it still sounds like a stupid business move to me. It’s hard to understand that somebody . . . could just throw away something so good. But they are in that position. Chuck’s got the golden touch. He’s super gifted. And so are Steve and Steve. They can do that.
Chuck Lorre: It’s interesting she thought CBS was the culprit. CBS really, to my astonishment, did not push back when we said we believe the story is over. I was actually quite pleased that they trusted us. I don’t know about their feelings being hurt, but I thought it was important, I guess, that Annie knew this was a creative decision and it was not a business decision. The business decision would be, “Let’s ride the gravy train till the wheels fall off.” And that felt like a less appropriate path forward than recognizing we’ve told our story. If you’re honoring the backstory of Big Bang, it’s time for this little boy to go to Caltech.
Steve Holland: For a long time, Annie was furious. At some point she decided in her mind that it was CBS’s fault and was going on interviews bashing CBS, like what kind of idiot cancels the biggest show on television? And CBS was like, “Will someone please tell her it wasn’t us?” We were like, “Um, hey, Chuck, why don’t you do that?” [Laughs] She was mad at them, and I’d rather her be mad at them than mad at me, who she has to see every day, so if she’s worked this out in her head, I’m kind of okay with letting this go for a while! But CBS was like, “She keeps bashing us in print and we’re not the ones who did it! You guys did it. Tell her!”
The thing was, Potts didn’t keep “bashing” CBS in print. It was one interview, but her quote went viral and was picked up by nearly every entertainment outlet. Potts also didn’t mention CBS’s name in the interview that was published; it was just implied, but it snowballed into something bigger than it needed to be.
Annie Potts: What I didn’t count on was that original sin of telling one interviewer something that would go viral and make CBS angry. Listen, you have to be careful what you say. But it was my truth. I told my truth.
Matt Hobby: She’s just the best. Annie knows her value, and she knows her worth, and that’s always been really helpful for me. It’s a refreshing perspective from someone who has been in the business for so long. She was so pissed when the show ended. And when she said it was a “bad business move,” I remember all of us just being like, “Thank you! Somebody finally said it! Somebody who can walk from the money said it!”
Holly Revord: We were like, “Annie, say more!” [Laughs] We were egging her on to say more. She already opened this can of worms. She was like, “What are they going to do? Fire me?” That kept being the running joke.
Chuck Lorre: One of the wonderful things about Annie is that she tells [her] truth. [Laughs] She does not censor herself.
The post ‘Young Sheldon’ Ending: How Annie Potts Stirred Up Trouble at CBS Over ‘Stupid Business Move’ Comments | Exclusive appeared first on TheWrap.
