Star spills on Neighbours exit: ‘Wasn’t my choice’

Ryan Moloney has revealed the truth about his surprise exit from Neighbours after almost 30 years playing the character Toadfish.

Aussie soap opera veteran Ryan Moloney has given further details about his exit from Neighbours after almost 30 years – revealing that in fact, it wasn’t his choice to leave the show.

Moloney, 44, made the announcement he would be leaving Ramsay Street and the character of “Toadie” in a video posted to Neighbours’ Instagram account in late June.

He introduced himself as “formerly Jarrod ‘Toadfish’ Rebecchi – that’s right, I did say formerly, because after 30 years playing Toadie, I will be leaving Ramsay Street.”

In the video, Moloney gave a hint as to what he plans to do next in his career, revealing that he’d recently started training as a director and hoped to pursue more work behind the camera.

In a recent interview with Australian soap opera website Back to the Bay, Moloney opened up about leaving Toadfish behind after all these years.

“Well, it actually wasn’t my choice. It was their choice,” he told the outlet.

“So, yeah, I’ve been wanting to leave for quite a long time, but Neighbours is one of those jobs that you work with awesome people. You get paid really well. And if you had a mate who had one of these jobs, you’d be saying, ‘oh, mate, what are you doing? You’ve got to stay there. See it out for as long as you can.’”

Moloney said that he felt pressure to “suck it up and stay” despite feeling an urge to move on – so in the end, he was “quite grateful that they actually made that decision for me because I don’t think that I could ever say no to a contract.”

Toadfish: The early years.

Moloney said he was thankful the show’s producers had made the choice for him.

“And that’s kind of not the way you want to be doing Neighbours. You don’t want to have that kind of level of resentment in there. So I was very grateful for it,” he said.

Moloney made his debut on Neighbours as a teen in 1995, and stayed with the show until it was axed in 2022. He was then one of the returning cast members when the show was rebooted a year later.

In his June video announcing his departure, Moloney left the door open for an occasional return to the show: “Maybe I’ll be the next Harold Bishop and just keep popping back over the years,” he told fans.

“Thank you all so much for all the love that you have shown me and Toadie over the years. For three decades, in fact. I’m going to miss you, I’m going to miss him, and I’m going to miss Erinsborough. But whatever you do, make sure you do not miss what is going to happen on Ramsay Street,” he said at the time.

In a recent interview with UK chat show This Morning, Moloney said Neighbours would be pulling out all stops to give his character a send-off befitting his 30-odd years on the show.

“The only clue that I am going to say is that it is just bloody big. It is a huge, huge, storyline. I’m not going to say if he lives or dies. It’s not something to be missed.”