Kevin James Explains Why Erinn Hayes Was Killed Off His Show

Fans were outraged at the way Kevin Can Wait dealt with the firing of Erinn Hayes and the way her character’s death was mentioned on the show and now the show’s star Kevin James is speaking out.

“I get that people are like ‘Whoa, why would you do this?’ But it really felt like a thing like this was needed for this show to drive forward,” Kevin said in a new interview with New York Daily News.

The 52-year-old actor says that killing off the character was a way to move the plot of the show and open it up to new story possibilities.

“Now, I have to deal with my daughter in a different way, and she’s gonna go to college, or one’s getting married, or the holidays. And it deals with things in a different, weightier way,” he said.

“The plot of the show didn’t have enough drive,” Kevin added. “If we got through a second season, I wouldn’t see us getting through a third one. We were literally just running out of ideas.”

Here’s how the death of the show’s matriarch was handled on the season two premiere.