When (and why) did Larry David leave Seinfeld?

Back in July 1989, the now iconic and Emmy Award-winning sitcom Seinfeld made its premiere on NBC as The Seinfeld Chronicles. As a comedian rising through the ranks, comedian Jerry Seinfeld joined forces with friend and fellow comedy Larry David to develop the concept and voice for the so-called “show about nothing” that would become a television staple.

The series ran for nine landmark seasons, growing from its humble beginnings in season 1, which featured only five episodes, four of which aired about a year after the series premiere. By its final season, the series was still on top as far as ratings are concerned, and not everyone understood Seinfeld’s reasoning for ending the show when season 10 could have very well happened.

However, long before the title star made the decision to end the show while they were on top, his co-creator also made the difficult decision to leave the series. Larry David officially stepped away from his duties on Seinfeld at the end of season 7 in 1996. Over the years, a lot of fans have wondered what led to David’s departure from the biggest sitcom on TV.

Some have hypothesized whether he was burned out from having made over 100 episodes of television and helping construct so many of the show’s iconic moments. However, after returning to write the series finale, David spoke with Charlie Rose in an interview and opened up about the real reason he left Seinfeld after season 7.

"“Seven years is a long time for somebody to executive produce a show like that. No, I wasn’t burned out, I had plenty of ideas, it wasn’t that. I just thought that, I felt like I was ready — I felt that I had done that and now I wanted to try something else, and that’s pretty much it.”"

Clearly, there wasn’t any bad blood behind the scenes, since he later came back to help see off the show with its highly rated series finale. (Over 76 million people tuned in!) Perhaps there’s a little more that went into his decision to leave the show, such as the continued pressure to top what it had achieved critically, commercially, and narratively. Those choices aren’t without struggle.

Following his departure and now in retrospect, fans of the show have expressed that the last two seasons, which were made without David’s presence in the writers room, aren’t as good as the previous seven. It’s unfair to place responsibility solely on the shoulders of David leaving the show, as it’s common for shows to dip in quality as they age (though it’s true that changing guard causes that, too).

In 1998, he released the film Sour Grapes, which he wrote and directed. Unfortunately, it was met with negative reviews from critics and didn’t perform well at the box office. In 1999, he released the one-hour HBO comedy special Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm, which spawned the improvisational sitcom of the same name the following year. It’s since produced 11 seasons and has been renewed for season 12.

All nine seasons of Seinfeld are available to stream on Netflix.