Alison Sweeney, 38, is leaving "Days Of Our Lives" after playing Sami Brady in the NBC soap opera for 22 years.
"The head of it was wanting to be more available for my family and have more time to spend with them and be more flexible with my hours. I still have a lot of big stuff I want to work on and projects I want to be a part of," Sweeney told Hollywood Life about her decision to leave the show.
"Days Of Our Lives" debuted on Nov. 8, 1965, and Sweeney's first episode aired on Jan. 6, 1993.
A mother of two, nine-year-old Ben and five-year-old Megan, Sweeney is currently hosting "The Biggest Loser" and directing "General Hospital."
On Oct. 19, Sweeney also hosted and ran Women's Health magazine's national philanthropic race series called RUN 10 FEED 10 as participants feed 10 people in their community after running 10k, according to Huffington Post.
With her hosting and directing projects, Sweeney said she is going to miss the people she worked with in "Days Of Our Lives" who she grew up with.
"I've been friends with these people for a long time and they're like family to me and so that part is really hard for me," she said.
Sweeney said she is happy with the ending of her character's exit from the show "given the circumstances of how everything got to that point" but she cannot "make promises about it" as she does not know how other people will feel.
In another interview with Variety, Sweeney said, "My love for this character and for the job kept me there a lot longer than people anticipated."
Filming her final scenes, including a fantasy scene where Nick played by Blake Berris drowns her in the river, was "so fun and different" for Sweeney.
Among the current cast of “Days Of Our Lives” are Deidre Hall, Josh Taylor, Bryan Dattilo, John Aniston, James Scott, Lauren Koslow, Joseph Mascolo, Arianne Zucker and Shawn Christian.