Nicole Eggert quit “Baywatch” after being promised she’d star in a spinoff that never came to be.
The actress explained on Monday’s episode of the “Still Here Hollywood” podcast that while she was starring on the 1980s sitcom “Charles in Charge,” the show’s executive producer, Al Burton, was in contact with “Baywatch” bosses.
At the time, they wanted Eggert to lead a spinoff that was described to her as a “‘Beverly Hills, 90210′-esque’ show at the beach.”
“He said, ‘I want Nicole to be in it.’ And then David Charvet and some more cast,” she told host Steve Kmetko. “And they wanted to bring us on and do a spinoff.”
“It would be a ‘high school at the beach training to be lifeguards,’ and it was gonna be its own thing.”
The actress, 54, said that when she joined “Baywatch” at the start of Season 3, the syndicated series “became the No. 1 show in the world.”
However, the success of the series also killed plans for the spinoff.
“They were like, ‘Spinoff? Nothing! This is what’s working, and we want it to stay like this!’” Eggert recalled.
“So after two seasons, I politely bowed out, because it wasn’t really what I signed up for,” she explained.
Eggert, who was only 20 at the time, admitted that she made a hasty decision when she quit the series.
“I had some crazy idea in my head that if I left the show, I would be able to detach myself from the stigma that the show had given all of us as actors, which is now a thing,” Eggert shared.
She added, “But at 20 years old… if I could go back and talk to that 20 year old… wild ideas.”
Eggert — who is currently in recovery from breast cancer treatment — also acknowledged that the canned spinoff “was a great idea” and “would’ve been a great show.”
“And Elizabeth Berkley was attached,” Eggert said about the “Saved by the Bell” actress. “We had a great cast.”
“Baywatch” aired for 11 seasons from 1989 to 2001 and starred David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson, Gregory Alan Williams, Alexandra Paul, Jeremy Jackson, Parker Stevenson, Billy Warlock, Erika Eleniak and Yasmine Bleeth.
The show sparked a spinoff, “Baywatch Nights,” that aired for two seasons from 1995 to 1997, followed by a 2017 film.
Fox’s upcoming “Baywatch” reboot, starring Stephen Amell, Shay Mitchell, Noah Beck, Brooks Nader and Livvy Dunne, is currently filming.
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