Rob Lowe Compares Time on ‘The West Wing’ to ‘Super Unhealthy Relationship’

Rob Lowe is looking back at his time on The West Wing.

The 59-year-old actor played deputy communications director Sam Seaborn for the first four seasons of the NBC political drama before he shocked fans by exiting the show halfway through season four. He later returned for two episodes in season seven.

In a new interview, Rob said that leaving The West Wing was “the best thing I ever did,” comparing his time on the show to a “super unhealthy relationship.”

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“I felt very undervalued,” Rob shared on Stitcher Studios’ Podcrushed podcast. “It happens in any workplace. You can be in an environment where people sandbag you, wanna see you fail, don’t appreciate you — whatever it is.”

Rob added, “Whenever I share my stories, people are like, ‘I will never share my own stories again’ because they would make your hair stand on end.”

In his 2011 memoir Stories I Only Tell My Friends, Rob shared some stories about his time on The West Wing, but decided to leave a lot out.

“I purposely didn’t share half of the other ones because it would make the people involved look so bad that I didn’t want to do it to them,” Rob explained. “I did not have a good experience and tried to make it work and tried to make it work and tried to make it work.”

Rob later said that his sons Matthew, 29, and John Owen, 27, were what ultimately inspired him to leave the show.

“What happened was my kids were getting to a certain age where I could see them having first girlfriends or friends and being in a relationship that was abusive and taking it,” Rob said, as he compared his relationship with the show to dating the “popular girl” in school.

“Everybody likes her, she’s beautiful, it must be great — all the things that people would say about making The West Wing to me,” Rob explained. “‘It’s so popular, it’s so amazing, it must be amazing,’ but I know what it’s like and if I couldn’t walk away from it then how could I empower my kids to walk away from it?”

“I walked away from the most popular girl at school, but I also knew that it was a super unhealthy relationship and it was the best thing I ever did,” Rob continued, adding that he has “zero regrets.”

“What people forget is the minute I left, Just Jared Aaron Sorkin left and then it wasn’t The West Wing anymore,” Rob noted. “It was ER in the White House, which is perfectly fine, but I’m not interested in that.”

In another recent interview, Rob opened up about his show 9-1-1 moving to ABC after airing on Fox for six seasons.