Erin Murphy Shares New Details on the Sudden End of ‘Bewitched'-‘There Was No Goodbye'
Erin Murphy opened up about the end of Bewitched in a new interview. The former child actress who played Tabitha Stephens on the ABC fantasy sitcom from 1966 to 1972 appeared on Billy Corgan'sThe Magnificent Others podcast, where she shared new details about the sudden ending to the series more than 50 years ago.
In the May 2026 interview, Murphy, now 61, explained that the cast fully expected to return to the series for a ninth season, but that series star Elizabeth Montgomery made the decision to end the series amid her split from showrunner William Asher.
"So we went on hiatus, which is our break, and we had contracts to do two more years of the show," Murphy told Corgan. "So, it wasn't like … we weren't canceled. I think people always ask why was Bewitched canceled, and it wasn't. We had a contract to do two, and I think it's like an addendum to do three [more seasons], that it was a guaranteed thing. And then we went on our break. … We all got telegrams and letters saying, 'We have decided not to do the show.' Bill Asher and Liz were going through a divorce and they just, she especially, decided just not to do the show anymore."
Murphy noted that there was no official finale or closure for the cast, which also starred Dick Sargent, Agnes Moorehead, and David White.
"So there was no goodbye," she shared. "So it wasn't like we said, you know how at the end of a school year you cry, you say goodbye. None of us had that. We had the ‘see you soon, we'll be back' kind of thing."
Murphy, who joined the cast of Bewitched at age two, explained that while the end of the show was hard in that she missed her castmates and the crew members, she was also excited to just be a kid again.
"We'd stay in touch with Christmas cards, and I was dear friends and still am with Elizabeth Montgomery and Bill Asher's kids," Murphy added of her post-show relationship with her TV mom. "So I stayed in touch with her through her children."
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Erin Murphy has no special memories of the final ‘Bewitched' episode
The final episode of Bewitched, titled "The Truth, Nothing But the Truth, So Help Me Sam," aired on March 25, 1972, on ABC. It was a regular episode with no inklings of a series finale.
Murphy told Remind magazine that she had no special memories of the final episode because it "wasn't supposed to be the final episode."
"We went on hiatus like always, expecting to come back," she said in 2025. "The final episode was just like any other week of the show. None of us knew it was the final episode while we were filming it. … There was no goodbye party except for the end-of-season wrap party. But that was like every other season," the Bewitched child star added.
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This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 4:36 AM.