‘Pretty Little Liars’ Actress Troian Bellisario Writes Emotional Goodbye To Fans After Cancellation News

A day after “Pretty Little Liars” stars Troian Bellisario, Ashley Benson, Lucy Hale, Shay Mitchell, Sasha Pieterse and creator I. Marlene King announced in a Facebook Live broadcast that the Freeform mystery-thriller series is ending after Season 7, Bellisario took to social media to reflect what it was like for her to reveal that she will soon be leaving Rosewood.

In Bellisario’s latest Instagram post, which comes with a throwback photo of herself with four of her fellow main stars, the 30-year-old actress admitted that announcing the final season of the show felt “strange” for her.

“I've thought about what it would be like to tell the world we are saying goodbye for a long time. I didn't really know what it would be like,” she wrote. “We (the cast and crew) have known for a long time so when we said it out loud I felt so removed. As if I was commenting on something that was already gone.”

Although Bellisario has already started to bid her long farewell to the beloved series, she noted that “there’s so much left to do” as the second half of Season 7 will premiere in April 2017, and the series finale will be a supersized two-hour event.

“So much of this story [is] left to tell in these final months,” Bellisario continued. “And I will say that I am more proud of the work we are doing now. More proud of the friendships we have now and the lives we are living now, as a cast and crew, than I ever have been.”

At the end of her post, Patrick J. Adams’ fiancée told fans that it’s fine to be sad, but reminded them that they have an “amazing” final season ahead of them.

Benson, Hale, Mitchell and Pieterse as well as cast members Keegan Allen and Janel Parrish also reacted to the final season announcement on social media. See their posts below:

Karey Burke, executive vice president of programming and development for Freeform, recently told Variety that concluding “Pretty Little Liars” after the current installment has been the plan for a couple of years.

Burke added that the factors that went into the decision to end the show after Season 7 were “entirely creative.” “It ultimately comes down to Marlene and her vision, and her sense of where the natural place for the narrative to end was, and this was that,” she said. “Knowing that there was an ending point really gave her and [producers] Oliver [Goldstick] and Joe [Dougherty] and Charlie Craig creative license to build very carefully toward something. Rarely in television do you get the chance to do that. I think they did wonders with it.”