When it comes to figuring out why Emmy Rossum left the show, it’s tempting not to read between the lines of what some of the “Shameless” actors and crew members have said in the years since. There are rumors that Rossum was difficult to work with behind the scenes, which was given more validity when Emma Kenney, who played Debbie on the series, alluded to them in a 2021 interview on the podcast “Call Her Daddy” (via Deadline). “I remember pre-her leaving,” Kenney recalled, “I’d go to set some days and I’d be very anxious about having a scene with her because if she had a bad day, she made it a bad day for everybody.”
The official reason for Rossum’s departure is simply that she wanted to work on other projects, not because of any tensions with the cast. “I can say for certain that this cast and crew, who I’ve been have truly honored to work alongside, are world class,” she wrote in a Facebook post at the time. “I am proud and I’m filled with gratitude.”
The other potential factor in Rossum’s departure was her pay dispute with Showtime in 2016. As Variety reported at the time, “Rossum is demanding equal pay with [William H.] Macy, after seven seasons of being paid less than him, according to a report published earlier today by The Hollywood Reporter. A source tells Variety she has in fact been offered equal pay. But she is holding out for a bigger salary than Macy to make up for the previous seasons where she was making significantly less than him.”
I think Rossum had a good case to make. Although Macy was the biggest name attached to the show, by 2016 it had long been clear that Rossum, Jeremy Allen White, and Cameron Monaghan were all doing way more work than him with a lot more interesting material. Fiona, in particular, was both the heart of “Shameless” and the clear main character; of course Rossum should be the highest paid. Showtime ended up agreeing to Rossum’s terms fairly quickly, and although some fans often speculate that the dispute factored into Rossum’s decision to leave, her own comments on the situation imply nothing of the sort.
“The bottom line of it was for me, I had to make a very unemotional, very business decision,” she told the Daily Beast after it happened. “It’s their responsibility to make the most profit, which means getting the talent that’s best for the role at the cheapest rate possible. Everyone likes to get something on sale. And it’s our responsibility to get as much as we can, and that’s our agents’ and lawyers’ responsibility. It is, at the end of the day, business.”
