Taye Diggs has officially left “All American.”
The “All American” team wrote Diggs’ character, Billy Baker, off the CW series in the Feb. 13 episode.
The show, in its fifth season, is one of The CW’s biggest, with high ratings and a spinoff series, “All American: Homecoming.” During Monday’s shocking episode, Baker and the team he coaches are involved in a bus accident after a tire blows. Baker and the team exit the bus safely, but the coach subsequently realizes Jabari (Simeon Daise) remains stuck on the bus, which hangs from a cliff.
While Grace and Jordan, played by Karimah Westbrook and Michael Evans Behling respectively, beg him not to return, Baker attempts to save Jabari. The episode ends with Grace and Jordan telling Baker’s family that he died.
Speaking to Variety, showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll said, “We were so incredibly lucky to have Taye Diggs be part of this production from day one, so one of the things that we’d always talked about was, we have no idea of how long we would be able to hold on to him. I mean, he’s Taye Diggs.”
Revealing her conversation with Diggs at the end of season 4, she told the outlet, “… I already knew that whenever it would happen, that this was how I was going to do it. I pitched it to him …even though it was still easily a year away. He was like, ‘It feels like the right time and it feels like the right way to do it.’ It just felt right for both of us.”
“All American” was recently renewed for season 6 and airs 8 p.m. Mondays on The CW.
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