Nina Dobrev Reveals Bleak Reason She Left ‘Vampire Diaries’

Nina Dobrev is opening up about how a battle over equal pay led to her exit from The Vampire Diaries.

Dobrev, who was the only cast member to play multiple characters early on in The CW show, revealed in the newly-released book I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries that she was still paid less than her male co-stars Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley.

“Candice [King], Kat [Graham], and I were the three lowest-paid series regulars in the first two seasons,” said Dobrev, who played Elena Gilbert and her evil doppelgänger, Katherine Pierce. “It was a bit of a tricky situation because my contract only said to play Elena, but I was playing multiple characters, which doubled my workload. I had to be on set for double the amount of time, I had to memorize double the amount of lines.”

“I wanted to play Katherine, but I wanted to be compensated fairly for that, and I wanted to be an equal to the boys,” she added, as per The Hollywood Reporter.

While Dobrev did eventually get a raise, she was never paid equal to that of her male co-stars. The Degrassi: The Next Generation alum said she was told at the time that it was “out of principle” that the studio wouldn’t equate their pay, which was “probably the most hurtful because it felt like I was really working hard and we shot eighteen-hour days sometimes, and nights, and I was putting my absolute heart and soul, blood, sweat, and tears into it.”

“I remember feeling like the studio didn’t appreciate what I was bringing to the show, and it felt like they were saying that all the hard work I was putting into it didn’t matter to them and that I wasn’t an equal to my male counterparts,” she continued, “and so that was upsetting to me.”

The tension over Dobrev’s pay got so “heated” that The Vampire Diaries co-creator Julie Plec said in the book that the writers were told they couldn’t use Katherine anymore.

“Over time, between Nina being generous and gracious and the tension simmering down a little bit, we were granted a certain number of episodes,” she recalled. “[But] I literally think we had to say, ‘We’ll kill Katherine,’ in order to get permission to use her.”

Dobrev eventually exited the series after Season 6, only returning for the series finale. While the actress was originally meant to return for the entire season, the issue of pay once more disrupted the writers’ intention for the ending, as the studio once again refused to compensate her equally to Somerhalder and Wesley.

“I felt like it was important and it needed to happen for the show, it needed to happen for the fans,” Dobrev said of her return. “It was just really important to me that at the end of the show, as a woman, I wanted to make sure that I was compensated and that I was an equal to my male counterparts on the show, and so it came down to that.”

She continued, “I had to put my foot down and say if it didn’t happen I wouldn’t be able to come back. And it wasn’t about the money — I didn’t give a s—t about the money at all — it was the principle.”

Plec eventually put her “foot down,” but the studio still only agreed to pay Dobrev for one episode at the rate she requested.

“For the fans I felt horrible and I wanted the story to be told in the best way possible, and it was heartbreaking that the artistry had to suffer because of this, that we didn’t get to maybe have the few episodes at the end of the show that Julie wanted,” she said, adding, “I’m very happy that we were able to make it work and that I came back, because I wanted to be part of the goodbye.”