Inside the Shocking Decision to End ‘Young Sheldon’ at Its Peak (Exclusive Excerpt)

“One thing about a television show that succeeds is that a family is created over many years, and when you bring it to an end, there’s grieving,“ Chuck Lorre reflected on the ending of CBS hit show Young Sheldon.

The series, which premiered in 2017 and starred Iain Armitage, Lance Barber, Raegan Revord, Zoe Perry, Annie Potts, Montana Jordan and Emily Osment, ended in 2024 after seven seasons. And though Young Sheldon was successful, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and joint writers and actors strikes in 2023, it became apparent to the show’s creative team that the narrative of the TV show‘s story was leading to an end.

Jessica Radloff, New York Times best-selling author and host of The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast for HBO Max and Warner Bros., explores the decision to end the show and more in her upcoming book, Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw’s-Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy, releasing on Oct. 20 from Grand Central Publishing. Through exclusive interviews, Radloff offers behind-the-scenes revelations and heartfelt anecdotes from the show‘s cast and crew as well as the emotional journey that led to the end of the series.

Though any end to a show can be bittersweet, Radloff‘s book explores how the cast experienced an array of emotions after learning the show would not be continuing — while on a Zoom call.

Four days after the actors’ strike ended, castmembers Barber, Perry, Potts, Armitage, Revord, Jordan and Osment were invited to a mandatory Zoom meeting with Lorre, Steve Molaro and Steve Holland where they would shockingly learn the show‘s fate.

Below, The Hollywood Reporter shares an excerpt on the Zoom call that ended it all from Radloff‘s Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw’s-Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy.

The spring of 2023 marked the start of a complicated time. Young Sheldon had just wrapped season six and had one more year on a three-season renewal that began in 2021. If Young Sheldon was going to continue past season seven, the main cast would have to negotiate new contracts. The goal is always the same when you’re on a hugely successful show: Get more money. But times were changing in Hollywood, and budgets were starting to shrink post-pandemic.

Then there was the fact that Iain Armitage and Raegan Revord were getting older. Time on the show had already been slowed down since it was established that George dies when the twins are 14, so at one point do you totally abandon Big Bang canon? And if you don’t, do you continue a show without the gigantic presence that is and was George Cooper?

As if the writers and producers didn’t have enough to think about, a writers’ strike was looming, which had the potential to bring Hollywood to a halt. But if the pandemic taught anyone anything, it’s that you have to take each day as it comes. And so, when the last episode of season six was completed, Lorre, Molaro, and Holland approached the upcoming summer hiatus with the hope that they’d be back in the writers room come June, back in production in late July and on the air in September.

Steve Holland: You get to the end of a season, and you’re exhausted and burned out, so the thought of “Let’s start planning for season seven in case there is a writer’s strike” was not really something that was really feasible. Plus, writing that early wouldn’t have really helped anyway, as it takes about six weeks of writing and brainstorming to even get to the point of planning a new season and the first few episodes. And while we did think a strike was likely, we also didn’t think it was going to last that long.

Nor did anyone else. But on May 2, 2023, the Writers Guild of America officially went on strike due to labor disputes with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Nearly two and a half months later, on July 14, 2023, the Screen Actors Guild followed suit. At this point, even if the writers’ strike had been resolved, writing teams would already have been behind schedule for their normal September premieres.

Lance Barber: My concern was for the future of the business and everybody’s career, which is still playing out. We made strides, but work is so limited in this town. At the time, though, I felt like we were one of the shows that was earning revenue since we were a primetime hit show. But we were all on the picket lines, for sure. Nobody wanted to see a strike happen — and I’ll speak for myself — but I could afford to be on strike, which is not the situation for most actors. And so that wasn’t lost on me that I could fight the good fight because I could afford to.

Holly Revord: During the strike, we were with Holland a lot, picketing. We didn’t know what the future of Young Sheldon looked like, but I was always trying to have conversations with Holland about it, like what happens after George dies, and Mary’s a single mom to teenagers.

Lance Barber: I think from what I was told secondhand, the producers said, “Yeah, we want to see Missy graduate high school, and we want to take this as long as we can and we can cheat [the timeline].”

Iain Armitage: I didn’t expect the show to go on forever. I expected it to go for about six or seven years.

Lee Armitage: But I think Raegan felt they were promised like, “You’re going to be doing this show until…“ and Iain never had that conversation. People would say, “Would you do more?” just to find out where he was with it. And I would tell Iain, “Don’t give a yes or a no; take the time to think it through, and talk to your agent, talk to me, think about it.” So all my care was put into how to handle it if that ever came about.

Raegan Revord: I definitely thought we had another couple years. At some point, I think business affairs came to us to negotiate about a pickup, so when we were told the show was ending, it was shocking. And yeah, Lance, Zoe and I would be surrounding Holland all the time on the picket line, pitching stories, asking what might happen, et cetera. We definitely asked a lot of questions, but I do know everything was tentative because in this business, nothing is concrete until the episode is out. Still, there were discussions about where the show could go after George’s death, but we weren’t ever told, like, “Oh yeah, it’s happening.” That was never told. But the discussions were there.

Steve Holland: The actors joined us a bunch on the picket lines and there was definitely—and understandably—a lot of interest about the future of the show. At that time, we weren’t even sure we were going to get back to doing a season seven or if the strike was going to throw the whole season off. But I certainly never thought the show had four more years left in it.

After 148 days, the writers’ strike officially ended on September 27, 2023. While the writers were now free to go back to work, the actors were still on strike.

Steve Holland: The fear of the writers’ and actors’ strike was the longer it went on, the smaller you saw season seven becoming. We wanted to make sure we could give it what it deserved if it was going to be our final season, but as the actors’ strike dragged on into the fall, our hope for 22 episodes became 18 episodes, then 16 episodes. We knew basically in season seven that George was going to die, and Sheldon was going to go away to Caltech.

Steve Molaro: We held off on those big moments in show time for as long as we could. But we were now approaching them, and I didn’t want to make a show without George and with the main character away at grad school.

Steve Holland: Steve was very adamant that he didn’t want to do another season of Young Sheldon after that. I think I agreed with him, but I was more open to seeing what a season eight would look like.

Steve Molaro: They could have gone on. There’s a world where there could have been a season eight, and I could have just said, “I wish you all well; I’m going to take a step away from this.” And I would have. I personally did not want to make the show without George. So if everybody wanted it and were excited to do it and had a take on it that they were psyched about, I would have probably consulted, but I was ready to take a step back and think about other things.

Steve Holland: Molaro and I sat down at Chuck’s house and chatted about whether there was a world beyond George dying and Sheldon going away. And as we were talking about it, it felt like the story arc that was Young Sheldon was really so much about Sheldon looking back on his relationship specifically with his dad, and realizing and seeing it as a dad in a different light. That wasn’t the thesis statement going in, but as the show went on, it became very clear that the emotional through line was an older Sheldon with kids looking back on his parents, but specifically his dad, and realizing that he had maybe been unfair to him for most of his life. And it felt like that was the end of that show. It also felt like coming back to it without Sheldon there or George there … it would be hard to just to not live in the grief of George being gone. It felt like it was going to be going past the end of the story.

Chuck Lorre: I absolutely agreed that we told the story, and once season seven was finished, Young Sheldon had come to an end. Sheldon was now taller than most of the other characters on the show, so the “young” word was kind of looking a little silly.

Steve Molaro: Plus, we were not going to go follow Sheldon to Caltech. That was already a show, and it’s called The Big Bang Theory. And I’m not interested in telling the stories in the years before he met Leonard. But based on the ratings, I understand why a season eight on paper would have made sense. I just didn’t think creatively it was a good choice.

What Molaro and Holland did think was a good choice was a possible spin-off focusing on Georgie, his wife Mandy, and their new baby, CeeCee. It wasn’t until after the writers’ strike ended that the two started putting more thought into the idea, but the seed was actually planted a year before.

Alex Reid: We were on location in season six doing something with Georgie and Mandy, and it was going smoothly and all the jokes were landing. I just happened to be standing there when Molaro said something to Holland and the writers, like, “I could see myself doing five years with these two.” There was always talk or whispers of a spin-off, so at that point, he wasn’t saying that for nothing.

Steve Holland: I think it became clear watching Georgie and Mandy together that they were great, and to follow them would be great. What we didn’t know at that point was when that would be. We didn’t know how long Young Sheldon was going to go.

That is until late September 2023, when Molaro and Holland decided to actually present the idea of a Georgie and Mandy spin-off to Lorre, knowing that there would be no season eight of Young Sheldon.

Steve Molaro: I called Chuck and said, “Here’s my pitch: we make a show for Georgie and Mandy living with her parents, who we already know and love, but we flip it back to multi-cam.” There was a pause, then Chuck said, “You son of a bitch! Stop getting me excited to do multi-cam again!” He loved it.

Chuck Lorre: It made perfect sense. It just felt right.

Steve Molaro: We knew that CBS wanted Young Sheldon to keep going, regardless of what the creative was, but we had found this other path where we could potentially keep something going that was related to it but without having the weight of George gone, and Sheldon gone. There wasn’t any joy in that, but by flipping the format to multi-cam and focusing on other aspects seemed to me to be a version where if they wanted to do that, we could keep the comedy and joy going.

Alex Reid: Molaro also found the single-camera process completely tedious and frustrating. He could do another single-cam if it was eight episodes, but he can’t do six or seven seasons of 22 episodes a season. It just wore him down. He loved how the episodes turned out, and was very proud of them, but how the sausage was made was really not appealing to him.

But the window to bring Young Sheldon to a close with enough episodes to tell that story was getting narrower as the actors’ strike went on. Plus, as soon as the actors’ strike ended, CBS was going to enter into negotiations with the actors since their contracts would be expiring soon anyway.

Steve Holland: It was still a big hit, and it’s tricky because financially, things get more expensive as they go on, and if we had done another season of Young Sheldon, they might have had to cut the budget some to do it. Who knows? The shows get more expensive and the return on them gets less. They’re already presold into syndication, so each show that you make becomes less and less valuable at a certain point. So there’s a world where CBS would have said yes to more seasons, but cut the budget for it, and we also weren’t interested in doing a slightly slashed version of the show. So we met with the studio (Warner Bros. Television) and network (CBS) to talk about Young Sheldon, and I think they were probably assuming we were going to talk about season eight. Instead, we told them this was going to be the last season, but we had some good news. I had a picture of Montana and Emily holding the baby on my iPad, and we said, “But we have another show for you, and it’s this one here.” To their credit, they were incredibly supportive, but I think in that moment they were incredibly taken aback because they were not expecting us to say we want to end the biggest comedy on television right now.

Connor Kilpatrick: I didn’t think CBS was going to let it be the end, truly. That might have been wishful thinking, but I know they didn’t want it to end. I had always heard the story of when Charlie Sheen left Two and a Half Men, Chuck wanted to end the show, and Les Moonves (then chairman and CEO of CBS) told him something like, “I don’t care if you’re a part of it, but there will be a Two and a Half Men on CBS.” [Author’s note: And there was, with Sheen being replaced by Ashton Kutcher.] So I had a feeling that CBS was going to be like, “We don’t care if you guys walk away, but we’re going to keep making Young Sheldon.”

But that’s not what happened. Given Lorre, Molaro and Holland’s success with The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon, CBS trusted their creative instincts and had faith in a potential spin-off. The only problem was that since the actors’ strike was still ongoing, Lorre, Molaro and Holland couldn’t approach Montana Jordan or Emily Osment to even see if they were interested.

Steve Holland: We assumed they would all want to do it, but honestly, the one question mark was Montana, because he and [his now wife] Jenna were having a baby. I really didn’t know him well enough to know whether he wanted to keep doing this or go back to Texas, because he really loves being in Texas, and he loves being around his family. I could have seen a world where he was like, “I’ve got my Young Sheldon money and this has been great, but I just want to go back to Texas and raise my baby.” And then we would have no show. We just didn’t know. And we couldn’t ask him at that moment because they were still on strike.

Eventually the actors’ strike would come to an end, and on Nov. 9, 2023, 118 days after it began, the work stoppage was over. The cast of Young Sheldon was excited to get back to work but had no idea about the decisions that were already made behind the scenes.

Steve Holland: We had to do two things back to back, which was unfortunate, because we were about to start production. We had to inform the cast and tell them this was going to be the last season. We had done it on Big Bang, which was worse, but at least that was in person. In this case, because many of them were out of town due to the strikes, we had to get them all on Zoom. We wanted to tell them as soon as possible because we felt they should know, and didn’t want the news to leak. On top of that, we couldn’t talk to Montana and Emily about the spin-off until we told everybody about Young Sheldon ending, because we didn’t want them to be the only ones who knew this was going to be the last season of Young Sheldon. That didn’t feel fair to them.

And so, four days after the actors’ strike had ended, Lance Barber, Zoe Perry, Annie Potts, Iain Armitage, Raegan Revord, Montana Jordan, and Emily Osment received invites to a mandatory Zoom meeting with Chuck Lorre, Steve Molaro and Steve Holland.

Lee Armitage: When I got the hint that there might be something more to this meeting, I made it my business to know for Iain. I don’t want anybody sort of timing a surprise, good or bad, like that. I know what’s on his mind, and I know what he needs to know when. And so I found out. I don’t think they handled it perfectly, and I also think there’s no perfect way to handle it.

Iain Armitage: I was lucky, because I was not blindsided by their announcement when they told us.

Holly Revord: I knew it wasn’t good news because Chuck was also going to be on the Zoom, and Chuck can’t make the decision alone to do more seasons. They would have had to reach out to everyone’s representatives, and then the cast would have to decide to do more or not. So I knew there was a decision made for us, and especially when the email invite said, “Meeting with Chuck tomorrow … you have to be there.” I think we asked if the kids had to be there, and they said yes, which meant that if they were in the middle of schooling, we’d have to get them out of a lesson. Plus, no one’s agent had come to talk to us. So we knew. I didn’t want Raegan to be blindsided, but I didn’t want to tell them either. So I just said, “This is either really good news or really bad news.” Raegan said, “Okay,” but I don’t think they really thought much of it. The show was still doing so well in the ratings, and we were hearing from Warner Bros. business affairs there might be a multiple-season pickup, so in Raegan’s brain, the show was going to keep going.

Annie Potts: We were the number one show on network TV. So when they scheduled a Zoom meeting, I thought they were going to say, “Listen, we got a pickup for three years!”

Perry and Barber, meanwhile, were less optimistic.

Zoe Perry: There was a lot of uncertainty, but once we heard there was a Zoom, I thought, “Okay, this is it, because you wouldn’t normally have a meeting like that.”

Lance Barber: I assumed it might be to announce the end, because otherwise they would have to negotiate new contracts and they knew everybody would hold out and go to the table for some big money. But the show already had a natural stopping point coming up that would be appropriate, storytelling-wise. If they continued it, which they did in another way, it would be one that behooved them business wise. So I kind of felt from that three-season pickup at the end of season four that that was where it was headed. But I hoped for myself and everybody else that it would bring us work for longer.

On Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023, the cast logged on for the Zoom meeting and made small talk with each other. Everyone was in a good mood, if a little nervous about what was going to be discussed. There was some teasing about Lance Barber’s beard, followed by everyone congratulating Montana Jordan on the news that he was going to be a dad. “Our baby’s all grown up,” Zoe Perry could be heard saying, with Barber joking he was sick of his real family and ready to be reunited with his TV family on set. Once Chuck Lorre logged on, Steve Holland began by saying, “Hello everybody, it’s so nice to see your faces. And I know some of you have guessed this, but we wanted to get everyone in one place to make it official that this is going to be the final season of Young Sheldon.” He paused, and everyone remained quiet, but their feelings were written all over their faces. A second or two later, he continued: “[This] is incredibly difficult to say because of what an amazing place it is to work, and a lot of that is due to all of you. So thank all of you for being such incredible partners, and friends, and castmates, and family on this run.”

Steve Holland: I said, “To us, this just feels like the natural end of the show,” and “We talked about whether there was a version going forward, but this just felt that it was the right time to end it and go out on top.” But there was a lot of frustration and anger on that Zoom, like, we’re still a big hit show, and who walks away from that? Our feeling was, that’s when you walk away, when it’s still great, and don’t let it sort of taper off into mediocrity. But it’s a lot to drop on people. And especially for the kids and their parents, this had been such a huge chunk of their lives. I mean, it’s scary. It was scary for the Big Bang cast, knowing that was ending, but when you’re now 15 or 16, and you’ve been on this show for eight years, it’s what you know. And you’re losing a family. It’s a lot to process.

Steve Molaro: It was tough. We’re all a family and we all care about each other. I don’t want to watch anybody be sad or be shocked, but at the end of the day, I still believe creatively, that was the right time to end that story. Steve and I feel the same way about how Big Bang ended. They wanted it to keep going, and yes, there’s a world where it could have, and I’m only speaking from a creative standpoint, but creatively, to us, it’s hard for me to imagine a version of that that wouldn’t have been challenging.

Montana Jordan was the first to speak once Holland finished relaying the news. “Well, I wasn’t expectin’ that!” he said, his voice choking up. There was some uneasy laughter, and then, what everyone else was too afraid to say came from the only person who could.

Annie Potts: I said, “Well, that sucks! I don’t like that at all!” I felt I had voiced what everybody else was feeling, and I thought, “Well, I shot myself in the foot.” I went full Meemaw on them, I have to say. I mean, what did they think we were going to do? It wasn’t couched in “We know this is going to be upsetting,” so we had a second to collect or read what was happening in that Zoom room. I felt like I had been thunderstruck or lightning struck. It was more than a rumble. It was a direct hit.

Holly Revord: I wish we could have all been together. [Tearing up] It would have been nice in those moments to hug each other. And especially for Raegan, who literally didn’t say one thing on the call; they were mute. I will never forget Annie’s reaction. I wanted to be in person to hug her because she broke my heart.

Montana Jordan: I was in Texas, and just sat there, shocked. I kinda wish they had done it in person because then you can show your love to them, but I understand their reasons. I was just kinda sittin’ there in my own thoughts, like, “Oh, did he just say that?” And then right after, I called Jenna and said, “I better start applying to McDonald’s or something.”

Steve Holland: Montana seemed really shocked and upset about Young Sheldon ending, so I immediately thought, “Oh, he’s going to do the spin-off [now based on that reaction].”

Emily Osment, unaware that she’d be receiving good news soon thereafter, said, “I just got here! This is awful. You guys have been here so much longer than me. That sucks.” Molaro and Holland took a moment to then reiterate that this wouldn’t be so hard if they didn’t all truly enjoy each other, followed by Lorre announcing that the upcoming final season would consist of 14 episodes (shortened because of the length of the strikes), whereas most other shows were only doing 10.

Lance Barber: Young Sheldon could have gone on as The Cooper Family, but it still would lack some of the integrity of the show, potentially, if it moved beyond that storyline. So I was grateful, as I was from the beginning, to have the story end there because of the legacy of the character for me as an actor. Selfishly. But it wasn’t the same experience for everybody else and reasonably so. They want to keep working, and it’s a jackpot job. Nobody wants to look for another job. So I felt for everybody.

Zoe Perry: But that Zoom afforded Lance and I a chance to express some gratitude to the guys for what we got to participate in all those years.

The Armitages took the news as well as you could expect, given that Lee already had a heads-up. But like many people who often turn to humor in uncomfortable situations, Iain attempted to make a few jokes, while Holly Revord remained totally silent. Only at the end did Raegan say, “Sorry, guys, I’m still totally in shock.”

Still, the 15-minute Zoom ended on an inspired note, with Osment saying she was going to start making baked goods for everyone to celebrate the final episodes, and Lee Armitage offering up a virtual group hug to everyone. “We’ll see you in a couple weeks,” Lorre said, followed by several “Love you’s” among the cast. Of course, it wasn’t until after everyone logged off that the weight of what just happened started to feel real.

Holly Revord: Raegan just went to their room and cried. I wish that the producers would have given the moms, at least, a heads-up about how to handle it with our kids. I mean, the kids spent half their life on that show. They don’t know another world.

Lance Barber: I think we all got together on a call right after with each other [since] the reveal of the news felt informal and impersonal over Zoom. It gave them a buffer of us not being able to come up to them afterward and saying, “What the fuck?” But I realize now, which I hadn’t thought of at the time, that they wanted to tell us right away instead of waiting any longer, and not everyone was back in town yet.

Holly Revord: But when we were told it was “a creative decision,” it just felt like bullshit, and something we were being fed. There’s obviously still storylines. The Cooper family is still around a lot. Just on a different show.

Annie Potts: I can’t remember what happened after that Zoom. I think I blacked out. I’m kidding. I think it ended with “Thanks so much for the last seven years!” I mean, you couldn’t have just done that for one more year? But I had heard some people saying in season six, “I don’t know, this could be our last year because the kids are grown up now, and he’s going off to Pasadena.” And it was like, “Well, let him go! Let him go to Pasadena!” [Laughs] I think the audience would have been fine with letting him go off to Pasadena and hanging with the rest of us. But it wasn’t my call.

Connor Kilpatrick: We knew something was happening that day because all the executives showed up at our office building. And when you go to the office and there’s a bunch of fancy cars that are not normally there, and everybody is dressed nicer than normal, we know something’s going on. They had a meeting all morning, we started late, then they were in their offices for a while, locked behind closed doors. Right after they told the cast, the Steves finally came into the writers room and told us, and then they had a bunch of phone calls to make. And I went into my office and cried for 30 minutes. Even when I was told the writers room was regathering, I was like, “I can’t, I’m not ready. I can’t go back in there.” And even when I did, there were still tears in my eyes. It was a hard day.

Chuck Lorre: It was heartbreaking. There’s no way around it. One thing about a television show that succeeds is that a family is created over many years, and when you bring it to an end, there’s grieving. But unlike a movie where you work together on an intense experience for two to four months … a television series, if you’re lucky, goes on for years. And it’s very hard to say goodbye.

A press release announcing the end of the show was released immediately. Lorre, Molaro and Holland thanked the fans, while CBS president Amy Reisenbach added, “Young Sheldon proved lightning can strike twice. It set itself apart with a remarkable cast that felt like a family from the first moment we saw them onscreen and brought characters to life with unique heartfelt stories that drew audiences in from the start. We extend a sincere thank you to executive producers Chuck Lorre, Steve Molaro and Steve Holland and the entire writing and producing teams for six wonderful seasons. We look forward to seeing their final season unfold and giving it a proper send off with the best episodes yet for their fans to enjoy.”

Not included in the press release was the news that CBS was going to greenlight a spin-off focused on the characters of Georgie and Mandy. And that’s where things got really messy.

Excerpted from Young Sheldon Copyright © 2026 Jessica Radloff. Published by Grand Central Publishing, a Hachette Book Group company. Reproduced by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.