Euphoria’s second season saw plenty of new and exciting faces, but one vaping teen was notably absent: Kat Hernandez (Barbie Ferreira), the fanfic-writing camgirl who finally kissed her nerdy crush at the end of season one. Kat’s drastically smaller role in the new season’s action fueled rumors that Ferreira was feuding on set with the show’s creator and director, Sam Levinson, and a few months after the season ended, Ferreira announced she was leaving the show. On a recent episode of the podcast Armchair Expert, though, she denied having any bad blood with Levinson and explained why she left.
“When people ask me about season two, they come at me like I was some sort of victim,” she said. “I’m always, like, No, it’s okay, promise. It’s good. I kind of got sucked into this drama that I never asked to be in and that I’ve never talked about. Don’t believe everything you read.”
Ferreira called her departure a “mutual decision,” saying that none of the viable storylines for her character would have “fit into the show.” “I don’t think there was a place for her to go,” she said of Kat. “I really wanted to be able to not be the fat best friend.”
Ferreira did call season two a “struggle” for both her and Levinson, saying that she felt like “maybe I overstayed my welcome a little bit.” According to her account, they were largely on the same page about what was best for her character. “Sam writes for things that he relates to,” she said. “I don’t think he relates to Kat. I like Kat, so I get to go on my own path.”