If it was in today’s game, it would have been a different story because of social media.
There was a voice that the audience just didn’t have back then."
)he and Laura are finally engaged.
Ramona Rosales for EW
“I remember the last episode very vividly.
Very vividly, actually,” White recalls.
“What I remember most is I ‘one-taked’ the show.
It was like every scene I nailed it to the best of my ability.
That’s when the tears started running.”
“I was there on intros,” Williams remembers.
“I already knew that I would miss seeing you guys.
I knew that my life would be different.
I just remember experiencing the tremendous loss.
I spent probably 42 weeks a year at Telma [Hopkins'] house during the weekends.
She was like my other mother, [and] Jo Marie.
“It feels like a divorce,” Jo Marie Payton explains.
(Judyann Elder took over the role for the last nine episodes.)
“It was hard for me after nine years of doing something with one person.
“It was weird.”
“No disrespect to Judyann … but I felt like my mom was gone, you know?
If Payton had her way, though, she would’ve been gone a couple years earlier.
“I actually made the decision to leave the show two years before I left.
I wanted to do something else.”
“I don’t regret that I left.”
