‘Young Sheldon’s Iain Armitage Explains Why He Was Pleased the Show Ended

Iain Armitage starred in Young Sheldon from 2017 to 2024, but was more than ready to say goodbye to the show, admitting he was the “most happy” of all the cast members when it came to an end.

The 18-year-old actor was one of the show’s stars who spoke with Jessica Radloff for her new tell-all book, Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw’s-Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy. Armitage, who was 8 when the show started, reflected on his experience playing the young version of the character Jim Parsons made famous on The Big Bang Theory.

“Looking back now, it’s nostalgic sad,” he said about ending his time as Sheldon Cooper, per Us Weekly. “Like, I miss working at Warner Bros., I miss the crew and the people I love. I love the act of acting. I love doing it. It’s fun. But not really specific moments. More the overall thing.”

The decision was made to end the show with Season 7, knowing Sheldon would be moving away to college and dealing with the death of his father, George Sr. (Lance Barber). Armitage admitted it was tough to act under that constant, dark cloud, describing it as “heavy and annoying and weird” and saying he refused to “stay in that heaviness forever.”

“Plus, I wanted to be in Virginia. I wanted to be traveling, and I’m happy to do whatever movie comes up,” he added. “And my mom has always imbued me with a very healthy sense of ephemerality, and the fact that nothing good can last and everything changes, and that’s a good thing. I would hate to be on a show playing 23-year-old Sheldon. That would suck. I wouldn’t want to do that. So it was a perfect time to end it.”

The former child star also said he was “the most happy about the show ending,” revealing he wasn’t “going home and crying all day” like some of his coworkers.

Barber, who played Armitage’s on-screen father, also said he wasn’t as disappointed as others about the show ending. “And Iain was ready, too… to move on to something else, artistically, and maybe personally… with things that boiled up a little bit toward the end of the season,” he said. “I think a lot of people felt there were certain elements of the show that they were ready to move on from.”

The show ended with a cameo from TBBT stars Parsons and Mayim Bialik reprising their roles of Sheldon and Amy, respectively. Annie Potts, who played Sheldon’s grandmother on Young Sheldon, said she was a “little sad” about the cameos and how the show ended with a “mean and unchanged” Sheldon.

“That broke my heart,” she stated. “It was like, ‘Really? Still no responsibility?’ It was just selfishness… I thought the show could have ended [with young Sheldon] and not to the dreaded scene with Jim and Mayim as Sheldon and Amy revealing he was unchanged and unrepentant. That gave me a stomachache. It was like, ‘Who crashed our party?! Who invited you?'”