Taye Diggs’ Billy Baker has been the backbone of “All American” since the series premiered in 2018. Although the show is still a boon for the CW, Diggs knew it was time to hang up his hat. “As an actor, there are times when you just feel in your spirit and your soul that you kind of need to move on,” he said on “LIVE with Kelly and Mark.” “I expressed that to our showrunner, and she immediately understood and then started working on a very classy exit.”

Diggs and Nkechi Okoro Carroll came to a mutual decision towards the end of Season 4. “Even though it was so far in advance, I already knew that whenever it would happen, that this was how I was going to do it,” the showrunner told Variety. “I pitched it to him like I was pitching an episode, beat by beat, even though it was still easily a year away,” says Carroll. “He was like, ‘It feels like the right time and it feels like the right way to do it.’ It just felt right for both of us.” In the episodes following Billy’s death, we see a number of characters’ personal reactions, from Olivia’s (Samantha Logan) trouble with sobriety in the face of grief to Spencer (Daniel Ezra) losing a critical father figure.

Still, Season 5 isn’t the last we’ll see of Billy Baker. Diggs confirmed that his character will reappear in spectral form in Season 6 of “All American,” at which point he’ll act as a ghostly mentor to Spencer, Jordan (Michael Evans Behling), and whoever else needs wisdom from beyond the mortal coil.

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