Why did Tristin (Chad Michael Murray) leave Gilmore Girls?

Before stealing our hearts as Lucas Scott in One Tree Hill and Austin Ames in A Cinderella Story, the early-aughts heartthrob Chad Michael Murray turned heads as the snarky, popular prep-school boy Tristin DuGray in Gilmore Girls. Tristin might have been the bane of Rory Gilmore’s existence for a minute there, but we definitely loved to hate (and hated to love!) him.

Rory first meets Tristin in the first season of Gilmore Girls when she starts attending the Chilton Academy private school. He’s very confident and flirtatious with Rory, and pokes fun at her by calling her “Mary.” Naturally, Rory doesn’t enjoy Tristin’s prodding, but her best frenemy Paris has it bad for Tristin and thinks Rory’s making a move on her crush when she actually kind of hates him.

However, by the second season, Tristin makes an abrupt exit from the series, leaving after 11 episodes as a recurring character as he’s being forced by his father to attend military school in North Carolina. While it’s ironic that Murray would later star in The WB’s One Tree Hill, which takes place in North Carolina, is that the real reason the actor left the show?

The real reasons Chad Michael Murray left Gilmore Girls

Chad Michael Murray’s final episode of Gilmore Girls was season 2 episode 9, titled “Run Away, Little Boy,” which aired on Nov. 27, 2001. That same year, Murray appeared in The WB’s pilot for the prospective drama series Murphy’s Dozen, though the pilot was unaired since the series wasn’t ultimately picked up by the network.

His next role was as college student Charlie Todd in the fifth season of Dawson’s Creek between 2001 and 2002. He appeared in 12 episodes of season 5, with Charlie having eyes for both Jen (Michelle Williams) and Joey (Katie Holmes). Another ironic twist, Murray appeared in Dawson’s Creek at the same time as future One Tree Hill co-star and on-screen love interest Hilarie Burton Morgan, who was an MTV VJ at the time and played herself in an episode of the teen drama.

While it’s a popular misconception that Tristin was written off Gilmore Girls so Chad Michael Murray could take on the starring role on One Tree Hill, the timing doesn’t add up. Murray made two more stops on The WB, one more successful than the other, before finally landing on the series that would be his breakthrough role and see him star for six seasons.

As much as fans would have loved to see present-day Tristin, Murray didn’t reprise his role in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life when the beloved series returned for a revival miniseries on Netflix in November 2016. Instead, another actor took on a very small, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo role as Tristin. According to TV Line, Murray declined reprising his role.

In a December 2021 episode of Scott Patterson’s Gilmore Girls podcast called I Am All In, Murray spoke about being offered to remain on the show for more seasons but turning down the opportunity for a chance to continue exploring new roles as an actor, which as we know ultimately led to the role of a lifetime as Lucas on One Tree Hill. Back in 2001, he was still in the beginning of his career, and as he said on the podcast, he doesn’t regret choosing to move on.

As a fan of Tristin as a character, I would have loved for him to have stuck around longer and properly dated Rory. She did later date the blond, confident, rich boy in the form of Logan in college, but in her high school years, Tristin was somewhere right between Dean and Jess. Their relationship probably wouldn’t have lasted, and Paris would have totally hated it, but Rory and Tristin going official would have made for some fun episodes!

All seven seasons and the revival miniseries of Gilmore Girls are available on Netflix.