Arrow: Emily Bett Rickards leaving show after season 7

Emily Bett Rickards will leave Arrow and the Arrowverse following season 7, the actress announced Saturday on her Instagram.

Felicity Smoak is an integral part of The CW’s Arrowverse, but Emily Bett Rickards will be leaving Arrow following season 7.

Rickards posted the news on her Instagram account Saturday (March 30), revealing she will be stepping away ahead of the show’s final season this fall. The Canadian actress worded the announcement as a poem, which feels very much like something her character would do.

Read Rickards’ complete statement below:

"Felicity and Iare a very tight twoBut after one through sevenwe will be saying goodbye to youI thank you all for the time we’ve sharedThe elevators we have climbedThe monsters we have faced and scaredAnd The burgers we have dinedI will keep her in my heart for alwaysAnd I hope that you can tooBecause she would not be alive if it weren’t for all of you."

https://www.instagram.com/p/BvpHWl_FP-8/

Her costars were understandably rocked by the revelation.

“I need until Monday,” Stephen Amell (Oliver Queen/Green Arrow) posted on his Instagram story reacting to the news. “For now, I love you.” Also on that story, Amell posted a screenshot of their first scene together, from “Lone Gunmen.”

“You will be missed, my love. So happy this journey brought us together,” Colton Haynes (Roy Harper/Arsenal) commented on Rickard’s post.

This news was first reported by TVLine.

Rickards’ role of Felicity was originally a recurring role the first season, but she became a regular part of the main cast in Season 2 and quickly became a fan-favorite character.

Just a random IT employee of Queen Consolidated in the beginning, Felicity became part of Team Arrow, the CEO of Palmer Technologies, the leader of Team Arrow, longtime girlfriend and later wide of Oliver and mother of their daughter Mia Smoak (Katharine McNamara).

She has also survived being paralyzed during a Season 4 storyline.

Rickards has also featured in the role for eight episodes of The Flash, four episodes of Legends of Tomorrow and one episode of Supergirl. 

It was revealed several weeks ago that Season 8 will be the final season for Arrow, with a reduced slate of 10 episodes. Unfortunately, it appears as though Rickards will not be a part of the final chapter of the show.