Nina Dobrev’s ‘Vampire Diaries’ Exit ‘Shifted’ Series Ending For Elena, Damon And Stefan

The former CW series “The Vampire Diaries” may be over but members of the cast and its showrunners continue to spill major secrets about what went on behind the scenes.

During the latest episode of “Binge: The Vampire Diaries Podcast,” executive producer Julie Plec and writer Brett Matthew revealed they initially planned for Nina Dobrev’s character Elena Gilbert to end up with Paul Wesley’s character Stefan Salvatore rather than his brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder).

The series finale aired in 2017, however, Dobrev left the show in April 2015. The actress’ exit forced Plec to revise her ending.

“I thought that by the time we came back to the end of the series, whenever it was, that Elena would’ve found her way back to Stefan and Damon would've found a different path,” Plec explained.

Although she managed to come up with a new ending, Plec planned on letting both brothers die in the “TVD” series finale.

“When Nina left, it felt like the show can’t be as much about protecting Elena’s happiness, although that’s important to us, but we want to protect the brothers’ happiness, we want them to get something out of this,” she said.

“Then it shifted to: We can’t kill both of them for her because that feels somehow like nobody got what they wanted. Let’s find a different way to give one of these brothers the happiness that they need and the other brother the closure that they need.”

Matthew felt killing Damon was too much of an “obvious choice” and managed to convince Plec to let Stefan die.

At the end of “The Vampire Diaries” Season 8, Stefan sacrificed himself to save his brother, and Damon married Elena.