Shonda Rhimes says Regé-Jean Page's leaving Bridgerton was "really smart"

Variety

Page's decision makes sense. "And here’s why," she tells Variety. "He’s an enormous star now. As I like to say, the idea that we would write Regé to stand around in the background doesn’t make any sense at all to me. What would he do? is what I like to say.” Rhimes is laughing now, imagining it. But then she adds that when “everybody lost their minds” because of his announced departure, of course they invited Page back. “Rightfully, he said, ‘I signed up to do this one lovely story, this closed-ended storyline. I’m good!’” Rhimes says. “And I don’t blame him for that. I think that he was really smart to leave the perfection as the perfection.”