Jason Priestley Says He Left ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ After Begging Aaron Spelling to End Show

Dan Clarendon October 17, 2026, 12:23 pm

What To Know

Jason Priestley left Beverly Hills, 90210 during Season 9 after unsuccessfully urging producer Aaron Spelling to end the show while it was still popular.
Priestley cited increasingly outlandish storylines in Season 8 and a lack of closure as reasons for his departure.
After 90210, Priestley went on to star in series such as Call Me Fitz and Private Eyes.

If Jason Priestley had his druthers, Beverly Hills, 90210 wouldn’t have run for 10 seasons, and he wouldn’t have left the ’90s teen drama early.

But late executive producer Aaron Spelling insisted that the show continue, and so Priestley’s Brandon Walsh exited the drama midway through Season 9, as the actor explained in Friday’s episode of Jenni Garth’s 9021OMG podcast.

Priestley revealed he decided to leave Beverly Hills, 90210 after “lots of crazy stuff” happened in the show’s eighth season. “That was John Eisendrath’s first season as our showrunner,” he said. “John is an exceptionally talented writer, but we did all kinds of crazy [things] … People were in comas, and people’s twin brothers were coming to the hospital, and it started to feel very daytime-y in a way, that eighth season. It was definitely a departure.”

And for Priestley, not being able to see “a light at the end of the tunnel” became a problem, so he approached Spelling and begged him to end the show.

Everett Collection

“I was like, ‘Aaron, man, let’s end this. Let’s go out on top. The show’s great. The numbers are still good. Let’s do this. Let’s call it. Let’s write to the ending that we want to see. And let’s stop the show,’” the actor recalled. “And Aaron just said, ‘No, what are you talking about? They’re going to pull me off this set in a body bag.’ You know, he was that guy.”

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Priestley continued: “He said, ‘Never, I’m never ending the show.’ So I was like, ‘Well, I need to leave then. I want to go do other things with my career and in my life.’ … It was unfortunate. If I’d known the show was only going to go for another year and a half after I left, I would have stayed.”

Beverly Hills, 90210 saw Priestley off with the Season 9 episode “Brandon Leaves,” though he did film a cameo for the show’s 2000 series finale.

Following his 90210 gig, Priestley starred in TV shows like Call Me Fitz and Private Eyes. The latter was recently rebooted as Private Eyes West Coast, whose first season is airing on Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.