Lindsey Shaw Admits in Emotional Video She Was Fired From ‘Pretty Little Liars’ Because of A “Drug Problem” and Her “Relationship With Food”

The characters in Pretty Little Liars may have been known for keeping secrets, but former star Lindsey Shaw has bared her truth. The actress, who played Emily Fields’ (Shay Mitchell) on-and-off girlfriend Paige McCullers on the teen drama, got candid about the reason why she was fired from the series in Season 5.

While speaking on the Ned’s Declassified Podcast Survival Guide podcast, Shaw (who played Ned’s Declassified’s Moze before her time on PLL), revealed that she was let go from her role in Pretty Little Liars because of a “drug problem” and her “relationship with food.”

“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,'” Shaw said. “So it was really hard.”

Shaw continued, “I got basically let go from Pretty Little Liars in Season 5 because of the weight that I had lost, and it was really an embarrassing, embarrassing thing. Like, I didn’t look good too skinny and then, you know, 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.”

Despite being in a “much happier” place nowadays, she said she felt “so bad” when she learned from PLL creator I. Marlene King that she wouldn’t be returning to the Freeform show.

“I got called into the Pretty Little Liars creator’s office,” Shaw explained as she became choked up. “And she was just like, ‘So, we’re gonna let you go.’ 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.'”

While she told her former Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide co-stars Devon Werkheiser and Daniel Curtis Lee that it was “awful” to be fired, she commended King for letting her go “with so much care.” Plus, she was able to come back for the show’s final season, which aired in 2017.

“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,” Shaw said. “But that was rough.”

The Teen Spirit star added that — because of her drug use — her career hasn’t been the same since exiting Pretty Little Liars.

“I just gave away everything I cared about,” she said. “I just don’t know that I’ve ever gotten back to the point in my career that I was before that talk, that meeting, or that whole season of using.”

Check out the full podcast episode above.