Nina Dobrev departed from her role as Elena Gilbert on The Vampire Diaries after six seasons in 2015, citing a desire for new career challenges and dissatisfaction with her compensation compared to male co-stars. She returned for the series finale in 2017, insisting on equal pay for her appearance. The move highlighted ongoing issues of pay equity in the industry.
Nina Dobrev's portrayal of Elena Gilbert anchored The Vampire Diaries for its first six seasons on The CW, central to the show's romantic entanglements involving vampire brothers Stefan and Damon Salvatore. In 2015, Dobrev announced her exit via Instagram, stating, "I always knew I wanted Elena's story to be a six-season adventure, and within those six years I got the journey of a lifetime." Reflecting in a 2017 Harper's Bazaar interview, she expressed ambitions beyond teenage roles: "The things I want to do aren't necessarily the things that are expected of me. I don't want to play a teenager anymore. I want to play adult roles and be challenged and work with great filmmakers and tell incredible stories, and that has meant being really picky."
Beyond creative aspirations, financial disparities influenced her decision. Dobrev, who also played Katherine Pierce, felt undercompensated relative to co-stars Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder. In the 2022 book I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries by Samantha Highfill, she noted, "It was a bit of a tricky situation because my contract only said to play Elena, but I was playing multiple characters, which doubled my workload. I had to be on set for double the amount of time, I had to memorize double the amount of lines."
Dobrev's return in season 8's 2017 finale revived Elena from a magical coma, providing closure for fans. She conditioned her participation on pay parity with her male counterparts, explaining in the same oral history, "It was just really important to me that at the end of the show, as a woman, I wanted to make sure that I was compensated and that I was an equal to my male counterparts on the show. That's the only reason why at one point I almost didn't come back. I needed to be paid parity to the boys. I had to put my foot down and say if it didn't happen, I wouldn't be able to come back." This episode marked a compromise, underscoring Dobrev's advocacy for fair treatment after years of dedication to the series.
