Hearts shattered everywhere when Steve Carell parted ways with his character Michael Scott on The Office back in 2011. Although the NBC comedy series carried on for two more seasons, The Office was simply never the same without Dunder Mifflin's quirky boss.
The crazy thing is, apparently, Steve didn't walk away to pursue other acting or comedy gigs. In fact, in a March 2020 book called The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s, several crew members of the NBC comedy allege that Steve didn't intend on leaving at all.
According to sound mixer Brian Wittle and hairstylist Kim Ferry, Steve spilled during a BBC interview that he might leave after season 7 because the final year of his contract was looming. Even still, Brian explained that, behind the scenes, he hadn't made a definitive decision yet. But when NBC executives didn't make a valiant effort to get Steve to stay after his comments surfaced and made headlines, he was pushed to exit.
Ultimately, Kim noted that the network didn't pick up Steve for another season.
“He 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," Kim told Andy Greene, according his new book. "He planned on staying on the show. He told his manager and his manager contacted them and said he’s willing to sign another contract for a couple years. So all of that was willing and ready and, on their side, honest. And the deadline came for when they were supposed to give him an offer and it passed and they didn’t make him an offer."
Kim added: “[Steve] was like, ‘Look, I told them I want to do it. I don’t want to leave. I don’t understand.’ It just is mind-boggling how that happened. And I feel bad because I think a lot of people think he did leave the show on his own merit and it’s absolutely not true. I’m telling you. I was there."
The book notes that Steve's contract negotiations happened to be taking place as NBC was in the middle of a network executive transition, as Jeff Zucker was on his way out and Bob Greenblatt was coming in as his replacement. The Office producer Randy Cordray told Andy that Bob was “not as big a fan of The Office as we wished he would’ve been," and that he took the sitcom "for granted."
As we all know now, The Office suffered after Steve exited the series and officially wrapped in 2013. Steve, by contrast, continued to see his career soar, landing roles and voiceover parts in TV shows and movies like Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, The Morning Show, and the Despicable Me franchise.
Despite a rather heartbreaking split with The Office, Steve did come back to reprise his role for the finale episode of the series.
