Sarah Michelle Gellar stepped away from acting after Robin Williams died

Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar has opened up about the tragedy that led to her taking an eight-year break from acting.

Sarah Michelle Gellar has revealed Robin Williams’ tragic death prompted her to turn her back on Hollywood for almost eight years.

The Cruel Intentions star stepped away from acting after Williams, her co-star in sitcom The Crazy Ones, died by suicide in 2014.

“I’ve been working my entire life. When I had kids – and it was right after Robin passed away – there was just so much going on in my life and I just said, ‘I need to take a break,’” Gellar, 45, told People.

Gellar and Williams worked together on The Crazy Ones between 2013 and 2014, with Gellar playing Williams’ on-screen daughter.

It marked Williams’ final television role before his death at age 63 on August 11, 2014.

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Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar worked together on The Crazy Ones. Picture: Ben Gabbe/Getty Images

The comedian struggled with addiction throughout his career and had completed a rehab stint shortly before his death.

An autopsy revealed Williams was unknowingly suffering from Lewy body dementia, the second-most common type of progressive dementia after Alzheimer’s disease. Before his death, he was being treated for Parkinson’s disease.

As she was processing Williams’ passing, Gellar said she remembered thinking: “I need to be here for these early formative years of my kids’ life.

Gellar with her husband - and former co-star - Freddie Prinze Jr.

“I needed that break to be the parent that I wanted to be.”

Gellar has two children with actor husband Freddie Prinze Jr – Charlotte Grace, 12, and Rocky James, 9. Now that her kids are older, Gellar found the right opportunity to return to acting with Wolf Pack.

The actress also said she had been “really missing” her career.

“But it’s also finding the right opportunity, something that speaks to you that also speaks to your audience.”

After rising to fame in the title role on hit ’90s series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Gellar is now also an executive producer on the Paramount+ supernatural series Wolf Pack, as well as portraying arson investigator Kristin Ramsey on the show.

Set in the Teen Wolf universe, it is based on the book series by Edo van Belkom.

It also stars Armani Jackson and Bella Shepard.