‘Pretty Little Liars’ Alum Sasha Pieterse Says Alison & Emily’s Divorce Should ‘Not Have Happened’

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Sasha Pieterse wishes Alison DiLaurentis and Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell) had gotten a happily ever after. In the Pretty Little Liars spinoff series, Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists, Alison and Emily get divorced, which was a dagger into the heart of the Emison fandom. In an interview with TV Insider, Pieterse revealed her thoughts about Alison and Emily’s fate.

“I was super, super, super, super bummed with that storyline. I’m an Emerson shipper, and I was bummed that that’s the direction that it went in,” Pieterse said. “Again, in my universe, in my world, not only would the divorce not have happened, but I just see them being together and being such a good family. I think because of everything that they had gone through, it would never be that easy to separate. I feel like they have been through so much that they would work through things. It would be worth it to work through things. They had two beautiful kids, so that storyline made me really sad.”

The Perfectionists was canceled after just one season, so there was never a chance for Alison and Emily to possibly find their way back to each other. “It was also unfortunate that we didn’t get to do it justice,” The Image of You star admitted. “Also, in so many ways, I felt like because I didn’t have any control over it, I felt like we were letting the fans down and letting the fans down so early, too, so that was a hard thing for me.”

She added, “I also felt like all of a sudden Alison was a terrible mother, which also was weird for me. We never showed her FaceTiming her kids and saying goodnight. I was like, ‘What?’ But it is what it is. In general, Alison will always be close to my heart regardless.”

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Pretty Little Liars was rebooted in 2022 on Max with an all-new cast and mystery. The first season was titled Original Sin, and the second season is titled Summer School. Pieterse would love to reprise her fan-favorite role from the original series.

“I think it’d be really fun to do a cameo,” she said. “I love Alison. It’s like second nature for me to step into Alison in general. I would definitely say yes to a cameo. It would be cool. Those girls are so great.”

The actress told TV Insider that she’s “a little envious” of the reboot. “Being on Max, they get to do and show a lot more than we were able to and that’s where I’m like, oh, if we could have done that version of our show, that would have been a lot of fun because we could have really gone deeper and played into a lot more of our storylines in a way that I’ve felt like would have been more fun. No offense to our original,” she admitted.

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, Thursdays, Max