Chelsea Peretti Exits ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’

Chelsea Peretti is leaving the cast of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, as she explained to her fans in a couple of tweets on Wednesday.

Peretti has been on the beloved sitcom since day one, playing apathetic office assistant and general shot-caller Gina Linetti. She and the rest of the cast had an emotional roller coaster ride this fall, when the show was canceled on Fox, only to be rescued on NBC later.

Unfortunately, Peretti says it is time to get off.

“B99 fans. Hiiiiiiiiiiii,” she wrote. “Chelsea Peretti, here. I won’t be doing a full season of Brooklyn Nine Nine in Season 6. But that doesn’t mean I won’t ever be back, [winky face emoji], [heart emoji].”

“I want to thank you for the hours you spent watching Gina,” she went on, offering the advice, “be Gina: confident, idiotic-but-smart, pithy, and infused with rhythm and cell-phone radiation.”

While she kept the spirit of her character’s smarmy words alive, she left room for an emotional appeal too, including a quote by Emmy Rossum about leaving a beloved cast.

“It is hard for me to know exactly what to say. Perhaps Emmy Rossum said it best when she wrote about Shameless (I bolded the extra relevant parts in her quote below).”

Peretti then posted screen shots of several paragraphs written by Rossum. The bolded parts noted that the show she is leaving is “wonderfully written,” and that it is built on “real connections” and “real friendships.”

“This kind of stability, this family, has nurtured me and made me feel safe enough to stretch and grow creatively,” she quoted.

In the end, she concluded, “Try not to think of me as gone, just think of me as moving down the block,” an apt metaphor in the world of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Peretti’s character Gina has been responsible for some of the show’s most comical moments and some of its weighty emotional scenes. Peretti left the series for a time last season for maternity leave, but came back without missing a beat. This time, there are few details on the extent of her absence.

Peretti has plenty of other projects coming up to keep her occupied, not to mention a baby son to care for with husband Jordan Peele. In the meantime, she made it clear that her departure from the 99th Precinct is significant, but by no means permanent.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is expected to return on NBC in early 2019.