Turns out it wasn't Steve Carell's idea to leave 'The Office'

Steve Carell’s exit from his Golden Globe-winning role as Michael Scott on The Office gave viewers one of the most satisfying send offs in TV history. Michael got to leave on his own terms and move to Colorado to be with his wife Holly Flax, who loved him and all his terrible impressions. But in a new book about The Office, interviews with crew members reveal that Michael, or more specifically, Steve Carell, had no intention of leaving the hit NBC show. This is a revelation best described as threat level midnight.Carell played Michael Scott on The Office from 2005 until 2011 and left the show in Season 7, two years before its finale. At the time, it appeared that it was Carell’s idea to walk away from the beloved comedy while it was on top. The comedic actor was the biggest name going into the series, having already appeared in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Bruce Almighty (not to be confused with Evan Almighty, which Carell starred in later in 2007). During his time on the first seven seasons of The Office, Carell became a bonafide movie star, releasing features like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Dan In Real Life, Get Smart, Date Night, Despicable Me and Crazy, Stupid, Love. So, it didn’t come as a huge shock when NBC announced that Carell would not be returning for the show’s eighth season.What is surprising is that it now appears that the decision was not Carell’s, but one made by executives at NBC. Collider has published an excerpt from Andy Greene’s new book The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s and spoke to multiple sources involved in the show who confirm that Carell wanted to renew his contract for Season 8. That means we could have had more musical parodies (“Goodbye Toby” is a bop), more Michael Scarn sequels, more managerial tips (Michael Scott: Somehow I Manage), more catching him on the flippity flip, and more uncomfortable Christmas parties. How did this happen?!According to Greene, the wheels began turning on Carell’s exit after the actor gave an interview in April 2010 to the BBC and said that Season 7 would “probably be my last year.” Boom operator and sound mixer Brian Wittle, who worked with Carell on The Office, said the comment had a huge repercussion for Carell, whose contract was only secured until Season 7. “I sat with him one time and he told me the story. He was doing a radio interview and he haphazardly mentioned, almost unconsciously, that it might be his last season. He didn’t plan on saying it out loud and he hadn’t decided anything. He was kind of thinking out loud, but he did it in an interview in public and it created news. Then what he said was the people connected to the show had no reaction to it,” said Wittle.“They didn’t call and say, ‘What? You wanna leave?’ He said he didn’t get any kind of response from them. When he realized he didn’t get any kind of response from them, he thought, ‘Oh, maybe they don’t really care if I leave. Maybe I should go do other things.’ So I think that made it easier, because when the news broke that he was considering it, the people that are in charge of keeping him there didn’t make a big effort to do so until afterward.”Hairstylist Kim Ferry also worked on The Office and corroborated Wittle’s account of the comment and the lack of a response from NBC executives. “He didn’t want to leave the show. He had told the network that he was going to sign for another couple of years. He was willing to and his agent was willing to. But for some reason, they didn’t contact him,” said Ferry.“I don’t know if it was a game of chicken or what… He planned on staying on the show. He told his manager and his manager contacted them and said he’s willing to sign another contract for a couple years. So all of that was willing and ready and, on their side, honest. And the deadline came for when they were supposed to give him an offer and it passed and they didn’t make him an offer. So his agent was like, ‘Well, I guess they don’t want to renew you for some reason.’ Which was insane to me. And to him, I think.”Ferry says that it’s upsetting to her that fans think Carell made the decision to leave the show, something she believes continues to bother the actor as well. Casting director Allison Jones agrees with Wittle and Ferry’s account of the events, adding “As I recall, he was going to do another season and then NBC, for whatever reason, wouldn’t make a deal with him… Somebody didn’t pay him enough. It was absolutely asinine. I don’t know what else to say about that. Just asinine.”Collider notes that it was during this time that NBC was undergoing major changes at the top. Jeff Zucker was leaving his position and Bob Greenblatt was coming in to lead NBC. For fans of The Office, it’s comforting to know that it was not Carell’s choice to leave his beloved show. But at the same time, this news is a thief of joy.[video_embed id='1926896']RELATED: Here's what you should be binge-watching while you're stuck at home[/video_embed]