“The important thing was my time was ready.”
EastEnders star Max Bowden, who played Ben Mitchell on the soap, has broken his silence on why he left the show.
Speaking on The Lewis Nicholls Show on YouTube, Bowden, who played the most recent incarnation of Ben between 2019 and 2024, said he was experiencing burnout and “it was time for a rest.”
Asked if he was sacked or chose to walk away from the show, Bowden told Nicholls: “The important thing was my time was ready. I was very tired, and like I said, I wasn’t me, I wasn’t.
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“The Max sat in front of you today was kind of a ghost, and they recognised that – I recognised that,” he added.
On the burnout he experienced, he said: “I did nearly six hundred episodes in five years, which is a hell of a lot, and it was time for a rest. The character was tired, I was tired, they [the producers] were probably tired of me being tired.
“From an honest perspective, I think yeah, a lot of it was that I needed to go for a bit. I needed to go work on me, get myself back to a place of really good mental health, focus on healing and also be a dad.”
Despite his departure from Walford, Max revealed he is still in touch with producers and has even discussed a possible return.
Opening up about a difficult final year on the soap, Bowden said it was “life imitating art to an extent” after his best friend died of a brain tumour.
On-screen, Bowden was filming scenes with Danielle Harold, whose character Lola Pearce was dying of a brain tumour.
“It laid a lot out on the table, and it exposed me to a lot of vulnerability which probably at the time I didn’t navigate well,” he said.
“It was a tough old time, but you know what, I’m a hell of a lot stronger for it,” Bowden said. “That was definitely the hardest period of my professional life.”
