Matthew Morrison Wanted to Quit 'Glee' But Producers Wouldn't Let Him After Cory Monteith's Death

It's been almost nine years since Glee concluded its run, but the drama surrounding the show is never-ending.

On the Thursday, February 15, episode of Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz's podcast, "And That's What You REALLY Missed," they interviewed costar Matthew Morrison, who dropped a bombshell about his time on the musical-comedy.

"I actually was trying to get off the show. In season 5, I asked to be off the show because I was just like, 'I'm no longer being used in the way that I wanted to,'" Morrison, 45, confessed.

"And no disrespect to the show," he clarified. "We are at a high, I was like, 'Maybe if I get off the show, I could go do something else, go do a movie or whatever,’ and they agreed to let me off the show."

However, when lead star Cory Monteith tragically died of a drug overdose at age 31 in July 2013, Morrison was told producers "couldn't" allow him to walk away.

"Because you can’t have the two main guys on the show [leave]. So yeah, it was an interesting time," he recalled.

"Obviously, I understood," the dad-of-two shared. "Trying to reconcile my own wants and selfish needs with the grief of losing an amazing friend, it was a lot of mixed emotions. But I'm a professional, I showed up."

It also helped that the former So You Think You Can Dance judge received a pay raise.

Morrison explained that he struggled during his time on the series, as fans were often attacking his role.

"You have these newsfeeds coming out, bashing the way you're playing your character," he stated. "People trying to tear you down, and that got interesting."

The online hate became so bad that he developed psoriasis from stress, explaining, "our bodies are not designed to go through that kind of pressure."

That being said, the dancer looks back on Glee with several great memories as well.

"The impact, that's the thing that will stand the test of time. For me, that's a beautiful thing," he gushed of its lasting popularity. "There are few and far between shows that have a cultural impact and a societal impact for people. I love being apart of that legacy."

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The series ended up running for a total of six seasons, but more scandal and tragedies occurred within the cast in the years following. In 2017, Mark Salling plead guilty to possession of child p----------, and the following year, he committed suicide at age 35 several weeks before his scheduled hearing.

Then in 2020, ex-girlfriend and costar Naya Rivera died from drowning while out with her son at a lake. She was 33 years old at the time.