Lindsey Shaw recently appeared on an episode of Ned’s Declassified Podcast Survival Guide to discuss her battle with addiction. According to Shaw, addiction almost cost her her career and made her lose roles she still regrets to this day. Luckily, she’s clean and forging on, and I for one can’t wait to see her on more projects.
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Lindsey Shaw Reveals She Was Fired From “Pretty Little Liars” For This Reason
You might remember Lindsey Shaw as Paige McCullers, Shay Mitchell’s Emily Fields’ love interest in the hit teen drama. Well, if you’re a big fan of the series, you will remember that she left the series during its fifth season when she moved from Rosewood and broke off her relationship with Emily out of the blue.
If you’ve always found her departure suspicious, then you might want to know that she was fired from the show for her addiction issues at the time. Having to leave behind one of her biggest roles hugely affected her mental health, with the actress also admitting she suffered from body image issues.
Shaw said her co-star Mitchell was the first person to observe her struggle with her body image as they were both using the same nutritionist at the time.
“It was awful, it was awful,” Shaw recalled, adding that Mitchell brought her protein supplements at one point as a way of offering help.
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A little later, the actress was “called into” the producer’s office and was told that she would have to exit the series, though it had nothing to do with her acting.
“[The producer] was like, ‘Do you have anybody to talk to?’ And I was like, ‘no’,” Shaw tearfully recalled. “She was like, ‘We’ll find somebody [for you to talk to] and we have to let you go for now.'”
Shaw went on: “It was really sweet because they brought me back in season 7 and it was so lovely of that writing team to see that relationship, and that character, out but that was rough.”
Due to receiving the right help at the time, she was able to properly address her addiction and body image problems.
Lindsey Shaw – Says Drugs Made Her Give Up Many Things She Cared About
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“I just gave away everything I cared about,” she remembered. “I just don’t know that I’ve ever gotten back to the point in my career that I was before that talk, that meeting, or that whole season of using [drugs]… Caring about your body can make you go in a lot of different directions, from plastic surgery to drugs to withholding to any kind of shit.”
Shaw continued: “[The Pretty Little Liars team] did me so right, bringing me back for season 7. Just [letting] me say goodbye, I will just never forget that… That whole ride, I’m starting to be able to step away from it more, and forgive and appreciate and accept. That was a wild time and it kind of brought me here to where I am now.”
These days, the actress is doing so much better.
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