Get ready to say your goodbyes to Felicity Smoak.
Get ready to say your goodbyes to Felicity Smoak.
Emily Bett Rickards will be departing Arrow at the end of season seven, ET confirms.
The 27-year-old actress shared the news with a sweet, poetic sendoff to her character. "Felicity and I/ are a very tight two/ But after one through seven/ we will be saying goodbye to you," she wrote. "I will keep her in my heart for always/ And I hope that you can too/ Because she would not be alive if it weren’t for all of you ?."
In a joint statement to ET on Saturday, Arrow executive producers Greg Berlanti and Beth Schwartz said: "We’ve had the pleasure of working with Emily since season one and in those past seven years she has brought one of TV’s most beloved characters to life. And although we’re heartbroken to see both Emily and Felicity leave the show, we’re completely supportive of Emily and her future endeavors. She will always have a family at Arrow."
Co-star Stephen Amell, who plays Oliver Queen on the series, simply tweeted a photo of Felicity's first appearance in season one.
Rickards' exit means that Arrow's eighth and final season will not feature Felicity, who, in addition to being Oliver's wife, is the mother of his child and a major part of Team Arrow.
A flash-forward storyline in season seven has shown Felicity still alive in the future, operating under the Calculator moniker her father once used. The season also introduced Oliver and Felicity's daughter, played by Shadowhunters star Kat McNamara.
The Arrow team announced earlier this month that season eight would be the show's last.
"This was a difficult decision to come to, but like every hard decision we’ve made for the past seven years, it was with the best interests of Arrow in mind," series executive producers Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Schwartz said in a statement to Variety. "We're heartened by the fact that Arrow has birthed an entire universe of shows that will continue on for many years to come. We're excited about crafting a conclusion that honors the show, its characters and its legacy and are grateful to all the writers, producers, actors, and -- more importantly -- the incredible crew that has sustained us and the show for over seven years."
Arrow airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. See more on the series in the video below.
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