Katie Cassidy Says She Ate ‘Some Humble Pie’ After Being Killed Off of Arrow, Admits ‘It Was Really Hard’

Katie Cassidy is opening up about what it was like to have her Arrow character killed off.

“I will say this, I had to eat some humble pie when they killed me off that show,” the actress, 38, told host Michael Rosenbaum on the latest episode of his podcast, Inside of You. “It was really hard.”

Cassidy started out playing Laurel Lance, a.k.a. Black Canary, in the CW superhero series’ first four seasons. In a 2016 episode, however, the character died of injuries sustained in a battle. Cassidy told Rosenbaum that she had no idea her character’s death was coming, despite a major character’s death being teased in the fourth season premiere.

“I was like, ‘No one is in the grave. This is television,’ ” she recalled telling Arrow costar Danielle Panabaker at the time.

When Arrow showrunners Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg eventually broke the news to her over the phone while she was in New York City for a Comic-Con appearance alongside the rest of the cast, Cassidy said she was “in shock.”

“I was angry at first. And I was emotional,” she recalled.

Cassidy said she has “theories” about what led to her being written off the show.

“I think it was political,” she said. “It’s a lot.”

Still, Cassidy said she remained professional, while also expressing her frustration to Berlanti, Guggenheim and Kreisberg.

“I was like, ‘I just have to say, I feel like I've always been given the short end of the stick, and I have to go,’ ” she recalled telling the showrunners before hanging up on them. “I didn’t yell. I just cried because I was sad.”

“I worked really hard on that show and that character,” she added. “I loved it.”

Cassidy said she then had to put on a brave face and endure fan questions at New York Comic-Con about who was in the grave based on the season 4 opener, without spilling the beans out of anger.

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Of course, Cassidy wasn’t done with the Arrowverse. Shortly after her character was killed off, she was invited to guest star as an alternate version of Laurel, the Black Siren, on spinoff series Flash. After that episode aired, Cassidy said Guggenheim asked her to return to Arrow as the new character. She was even bumped up from a recurring role to a series regular.

“I was back and, like, better than ever,” Cassidy said of her return to the show. “I was just grateful.”