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Why did YaYa DaCosta's April Sexton leave 'Chicago Med'?

In the finale of 'Chicago Med' Season 6, we saw April Sexton leaving the hospital to pursue her dreams

The ‘Chicago Med’ team is like a family and if one member is left behind, the show seems to look incomplete and that’s what happened when YaYa DaCosta, aka April Sexton, left the show after the sixth season. The show primarily focuses on the emergency department at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center and the medical professionals as they work to save patients’ lives.

There are several characters on the show, but April Sexton made a lot of impact on everyone’s minds and people were really invested in her storyline. However, Season 6 turned out to be the last time that viewers got to see her on the show as she decided to not renew her contract after the sixth edition. This is a part of the field of acting now. A lot of actors leave one show to try their hands at something new so that they are not just put into one bracket.

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Even though the ending to Sexton’s story on the show was really satisfying, people are still wondering why she left the show in the first place. Let’s take a look.

Why did April Sexton leave ‘Chicago Med’?

In May 2021, YaYa DaCosta announced on Instagram that she has decided to leave ‘Chicago Med’ and won’t be returning for the seventh edition of the series. The actor shared a lot of pictures from the sets of the NBC series and said thank you to every crew member of the show. She wrote, “After six amazing seasons of working with some of the most dedicated people in the business, learning wild medical jargon, growing as an actor and as a person… my time as April Sexton on ‘Chicago Med’ has come to a close.”

DaCosta thanked Dick Wolf and the team for “believing” in her and giving her character such “dynamic storylines”. She added, “And this phenomenal cast!!! Thank you, Brian! Thank you baby bro Roland! Thank you, Torrey! Thank you, Epatha! Thank you, Nick! Thank you, Oliver! Lorena, Dom, Rachel, Colin, Norma, Otto... all the supporting cast and day players and names I’m forgetting... I appreciate y’all so much. I’m going to miss everyone dearly.”

A few months later, the actor opened up about her exit from the show and noted that she took the decision of leaving the show so that she could become a part of FOX’s drama ‘Our Kind of People’. During the discussion with Deadline, she said that there was a window when she was thinking about continuing with the show or joining the FOX drama. At that moment, she decided that it was time for change and she chose Lee Daniels’ drama over ‘Chicago Med’.

“And in that window, I fell in love with Our Kind of People and I jumped at the opportunity to work with Lee Daniels again. The show is a dream in so many ways and it’s saucy and so much fun!” DaCosta said.

How was her character written off?

In the Season 6 finale, viewers got to know that April Sexton has been accepted into a nurse practitioner program. In the end, Sexton left the hospital to pursue her dream.