The Real Reason Shemar Moore Left Criminal Minds

From day one, Shemar Moore's Derek Morgan was the charm and muscle at the heart of Criminal Minds. He made it through 11 seasons barely that included wrestling with bad guys and childhood demons, not to mention being framed, kidnapped, and tortured.

Finally, enough was enough for both the character and the actor who played him. Moore officially departed from the long-running crime drama on March 23, 2016 in an episode that saw his character's fiancée survive a gunshot wound and give birth to their child. And that was just two episodes after Morgan's own near death experience. Suffice to say that having a baby changed Morgan's perspective on his career, and he decided to step away from the action-packed life and his colleagues in the Behavioral Analysis Unit.

Since then, Moore has returned to both CBS and the role of crime-fighting action hero with a troubled past, playing Hondo on S.W.A.T. But despite his talent for playing tough guys who won't say no to a fight, in real life, Moore's reasons for bidding farewell to his most famous role are surprisingly similar to Morgan's reasons for leaving the BAU.

It took eight years for flirtatious workaholic Morgan to find a steady girlfriend. As Moore put it to TV Guide,

"You never saw [Morgan's] off-the-clock side, where he lets his hair down, dates, has drinks and has somebody in his life."

In the first episode of season 9, the character finally mentioned a girlfriend but it took another eight episodes to meet the lucky lady who would become his fiancée, Savannah, a doctor at Bethesda General Hospital.

Moore can relate to his character's overdue love life. In fact, that's one reason he gave for stepping away from the role. A few months after his last episode aired, he told TV Guide that he said goodbye to Criminal Minds,

"... so I could pursue other avenues of my life. I want to get married, I want to have kids, I want to travel."

A few years on, and it appears that unlike Morgan, Moore has yet to find the person he wants to settle down with. He's been romantically linked to several famous women since leaving Criminal Minds, including soccer player Shawna Gordon, whom he dated from 2014 to 2015, and actress Anabelle Acosta.

In 2018, he told Steve Harvey that he and Acosta were taking things slow, while also emphasizing that he was looking for a long-term partner, saying,

"I've done everything I could do by myself, and now I need that somebody I need that partner in crime to do the rest of what I want to do."

Unfortunately, Acosta was not that partner: the pair split in 2019, and Moore's mission to find love continues.

The other reason Moore gave for leaving Criminal Minds was both personal and professional. In that same TV Guide chat, he revealed,

"I'm just ready to grow [...] I'm not leaving to go make a bunch of money [...] I'm leaving because I just creatively want to be fueled, and [I'm] excited to try new things and see what else I'm capable of."

After departing from Criminal Minds, Moore starred in the 2016 rom-com The Bounce Back, which he also executive produced. The film looked like it might be Moore's chance to break the mold, as he went from portraying an FBI Special Agent to playing an unlucky-in-love, self-styled "relationship expert." The Bounce Back received respectable reviews from critics and audiences, but it ultimately flew under the radar, and didn't make much of an impact for Moore.

The actor also continued lending his voice to the character of Victor Stone (a.k.a. Cyborg) across several animated DC projects, which he had done even when he was still working on Criminal Minds.

In 2017, Moore went back to television for S.W.A.T., a remake of ABC's short-lived '70s cop series that is still going strong as of the making of this video. Moore told CBS This Morning in October 2017 that his role on S.W.A.T. is his "dream job."

It was certainly sad to see Moore leave Criminal Minds, but fans can take heart knowing that he's happy where he is now, and will likely be a prime-time mainstay for years to come.

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