Jim Parsons admits that he was in a pretty dark place when he decided to quit The Big Bang Theory. Parsons' decision to leave is ultimately what caused the show to stop with season 12. The series finale offered closure to long-time fans who spent over a decade watching the series and becoming familiar with all of the characters and their adventures. Deep down, Parsons knew that he had to make a change in his life.

In a new interview, Jim Parsons discussed the events that led to him quitting The Big Bang Theory. "I was really upset about, more than anything, one of our dogs was getting really at the end of his life around then,' Parsons said. The actor and his husband Todd went through a lot with their dog's illness. Parsons says, "As you can tell, it really upset me. Still does." He went on and had this to say.

"I was so beaten down. I walked out for curtain call [on Boys in the Band] and I slipped and I broke my foot. It was the scariest moment for the next couple of days because I felt like I was at the edge of a cliff... I was teetering and I saw something really dark below between the death of the dog. The bottom line was that it was a really intense summer. The dog passing away, he was 14, and Todd and I had been together for 15 years at that point, so it just was the end of an era."

From there, Jim Parsons started to think about his life and what he was doing with it. "I had this moment of clarity that I think you're very fortunate to get in a lot of ways, of going: 'Don't keep speeding by'. You know? 'Use this time to take a look around'. And I did." So, Parsons made the difficult decision to step down from The Big Bang Theory. "If you told me that, like my father, I had six years left to live, I think there's other things I need to try and do," he said. "I don't even know what they are, but I can tell that I need to try." Parsons' father died at the age of 52.

Jim Parsons and the cast of The Big Bang Theory are still close. They became a family during the course of their 12 seasons together, even though Mayim Bialik admits that she's never seen one episode of the long-running show. Bialik also recently spoke about Parsons' decision to leave, noting, "The whole cast, we kind of talked about it together, but I think the reality of it ending took a long time for it to really settle in. What felt the strangest wasn't when we finished filming in the spring, it was in the fall when we would have been going back to work."

The Big Bang Theory had a good run and Jim Parsons still provides narration for the Young Sheldon series, which just ended its third season. As for a reunion, Mayim Bialik doesn't think that's in the cards at the moment. "There's a lot of legal stuff which is very boring about why shows do have reunions and don't, but I think it's probably too soon." It's only been a year, so maybe it'll happen at some point down the line. You can listen to the Jim Parsons interview over at David Tennant's Podcast.