Lindsey Shaw Gets Candid About Getting Fired From ‘Pretty Little Liars’

Lindsey Shaw is speaking candidly about her firing from Pretty Little Liars. The 34-year-old actress, who played Paige McCullers on the ABC Family drama, opened up about how her drug use and relationship with food played into her exit from Season 5 of Pretty Little Liars on a recent episode of Ned’s Declassified Podcast Survival Guide, which she co-hosts with her former Nickelodeon co-stars Devon Werkheiser and Daniel Curtis Lee. 

“When I had my drug problem, and I was in between working on stuff, I would never have to address my relationship with food because I was always like, ‘Oh, I could always just go get more Adderall.’ Do you know what I mean? And, like, be okay with it,” Shaw explained on the podcast. It was a “really hard” time in Shaw’s life, and the actress admits she was “basically let go” from Pretty Little Liars because of the weight she had lost – something that was “really an embarrassing, embarrassing thing.”

“Like I didn’t look good too skinny, and then when I started to put the weight back on, I couldn’t handle it being too heavy, so it kind of played into this dumb cycle,” she continued. Shaw then revealed she learned she had been fired from Pretty Little Liars creator I. Marlene King herself. “I got called into the office… And [King] was just like, ‘So, we’re gonna let you go,’” Shaw recalled. “She’s like, ‘It’s not because of your acting.’ She’s like, ‘But do you have anybody to talk to?’ And I was like, ‘Um, No.’ And she’s like, ‘We’ll find somebody, and we have to let you go for now.’”

Despite it being an “awful” situation, Shaw said she did appreciate being let go “with so much care,” and that she appreciated Pretty Little Liars bringing her back for its seventh and final season. “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,” she shared. “But that was rough… They did me so right bringing me back for Season 7 and just letting me say goodbye. I will never forget that.”