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Mckenna Grace is opening up about why she thinks she wasn’t asked to return to Young Sheldon for its final season.

The 20-year-old actress played Paige Swanson on the CBS comedy, appearing throughout the series before her character disappeared ahead of Season 7.

In the new book Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw’s-Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy, written by Jessica Radloff, Mckenna reflected on a scheduling conflict that she believes may have affected her future on the show.

“On one of my last episodes, I was about to start on a film that was gonna shoot for, like, two months, and it ended up being this huge ordeal that I was gonna miss one day of work for Young Sheldon,” she recalled, via Us Weekly.

Mckenna ultimately had to pull out of the movie, and she wondered whether the disagreement was connected to her not returning.

“I was never really back [on the show] after that. I’ve never talked about this, but I always think maybe that was why it was my last episode,” she said.

“Just because there was conflict with it. I don’t think there was ever any bad blood.”

What did the Young Sheldon showrunner say?

Young Sheldon showrunner Steve Holland also addressed the situation in the book, offering a different account of the scheduling issue.

According to Steve, Mckenna‘s representatives had attempted to book her for a movie during the same week she was scheduled to work on the series.

He explained that the conflict would have caused her to miss an entire episode rather than just one day of filming.

The production team reportedly tried to coordinate with the movie, but the filming dates could not be changed.

“So things did get a little messy. There were some heated phone calls with agents, but that has nothing to do with Mckenna; that’s just the business part of the business,” Steve said.

He added that Mckenna‘s increasingly busy acting career also made scheduling her appearances more difficult during the final season.

Despite the situation, Mckenna said she enjoyed playing Paige and would have liked to return before the series ended in 2024.

“I wished I could have come back for the last season. That’s always something I get asked. Because I would have. I would have been there, for sure,” she said.

The actress also addressed fan theories about Paige‘s fate, saying she does not believe the character died and likes to imagine that she eventually found happiness.

“Maybe she’s out there somewhere doing something cool now, whether it’s working in science or math. Or maybe she has a little random job and is doing something creative,” she pondered in the book.

Another Young Sheldon star recently made headlines for revelations in the same book. Find out what Iain Armitage said about speculation surrounding his personal life.

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