Shemar Moore left Criminal Minds after 11 seasons to try something new, but he’s been on the same show for 7 years now.

Shemar Moore has been one of the leading faces of American television for many years. The man who started his career in 1994 in The Young and the Restless has since gone on to star in successful TV series and become an important actor for audiences around the world.

In 2005, he made himself known to the general public as Derek Morgan’s shoes in the cast of Criminal Minds. Unfortunately, at the end of the 11th season, the actor announced his desire to leave the detective series.

Therefore, in episode 18, Derek Morgan said goodbye to his colleagues. After being kidnapped, tortured and almost losing his wife and children, the hero decided to radically change his life and dedicate himself to his family.

Why did Shemar Moore leave Criminal Minds?

At the time, Shemar Moore explained that he wanted to leave Criminal Minds to focus on new projects. “I always saw my acting career as a school curriculum“, he said in an interview in 2016 TV guide.

“The Young and the Restless lasted 8 years, it’s like high school. Criminal Minds was a university. Now I’m ready to go to graduate school or PhD, whatever you want to call it.”

“I am ready to develop. I just want to get started. I’m not going to be a big star. I’m not in it to make a lot of money… I’m in it because I want to be creatively fed and excited to try new things and see what I can do.“

Shemar Moore will lead SWAT

And we have to believe that Shemar Moore finally decided that testing new experiences wasn’t for him at all. In 2017, just months after leaving Criminal Minds, the actor became the star of SWAT, an action series in which he plays Sergeant Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson, a character torn between his loyalty to his friends from the street he grew up with and It is his duty to his teammates. The change of register is not radical for the actor.

Unfortunately, SWAT hasn’t experienced the longevity of Criminal Minds since the series was canceled. Therefore, season 7 will be the last for Hondo and his team…unless fans can once again save the fiction, as the showrunner hopes! To be continued.

SWAT is broadcast in France on TF1. The first five seasons are available in their entirety on the Amazon Prime Video platform.