Martha Madison Finally Reveals the Heart-Wrenching Reason She Had to Leave Days of Our Lives💔

After responding to a social media post highlighting it being 19 years since she debuted as Belle Black on “Days of our Lives,” actress Martha Madison recently spoke with TV Insider’s Michael Maloney about her decision to exit the daytime drama series with her last appearance scheduled to air sometime in early November.

On Thursday, August 10, a Twitter fan account that shares photo collages every day of key points in “Days of our Lives” history noted that it had been 19 years since Madison assumed the role of Belle with a tweet that included screenshots of the actress and her character’s then on-screen love interest, Phillip Kiriakis (then played by actor Kyle Brandt), with the coupling dubbed “Phelle.”

In response to the tweet, Madison said, “Feels like yesterday and a million lifetimes ago all at the same time. Thank you to all the fans who supported me on my bumpy journey through Salem. It was a wild ride.”

After seeing her response, fans immediately picked up on her words in the past tense, seemingly confirming rumors that Madison had already departed the series earlier this year, and before the outcome of the reported behind-the-scenes turmoil that plagued the series over the last couple of weeks and eventually led to the ouster of now-former co-executive producer Albert Alarr.

Speaking of Alarr, he is the one who told Madison back in March, one day before the show received its two-year renewal order from Peacock, that her contract wasn’t being renewed and that Belle would be written off the show, which became a “lightbulb moment” for Madison.

“I was surprised to hear I was leaving, too! [Laughs] Actually, I wasn’t,” commented Madison shortly after addressing the quick end to the Belle and EJ (Dan Feuerriegel) romance storyline, which she pointed out got wrapped up in just one episode.

“Albert called me the day before the renewal was announced to let me know that they decided to write me off the show again. I asked why they chose me, and he said it was budget-dictated. He told me specifics about how they were going to send my character off, and then I thanked him [and] wished him well, and that was that,” Madison says of how she learned she was being let go from the show for the umpteenth time.

In the first Deadline article that brought the misconduct investigation to the public’s attention last month, the outlet noted that seven contract actresses had departed the series around the time of layoffs, five of whom were either let go altogether or dropped to recurring status. The remaining two actresses reportedly made the decision to leave the series on their own.

“Honestly, the writing had been on the wall since they squashed the EJ and Belle story so abruptly, so I wasn’t fully surprised,” Madison pointed out again in the interview with Maloney. “But then weeks later as I was saying my goodbyes to everyone, I randomly got another script. I was so confused because it indicated that Belle was staying in town, but nobody had spoken to me about that. Ultimately, they said they’d like me to stick around to ‘occasionally do legal stuff,’ and ‘then, you never know what might happen after that,’ and really that was just such a lightbulb moment for me.

“In my opinion, Belle was never meant to be a peripheral character. She is the only child of Marlena [Deidre Hall] and John [Drake Hogestyn], and, after 19 years of coming and going from the show, it just finally clicked for me that they were never going to showcase the character the way I felt she should be. So, I declined the opportunity to recur and shot that last episode in April. Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful to have played Belle for two decades, but I’m ready for more. It was just time to leave.”

Even though she formally left the series prior to the ongoing writers and actors strikes, Madison makes it clear that she stands by her decision even today, saying, “Yes. I feel like I can be patient now and wait for the right opportunities and the right projects. I’m very lucky that I have a full-time job as a vice-president at a recruitment agency [One Haus]. So, I’m very fortunate that I don’t have to make these career decisions based on financial needs. I’ve worked very hard to get to this place in my life where I’m able to make decisions based on what’s fulfilling for me and what’s going to feel good in my life.”