Their Vampire Diaries days are over, but Paul Wesley is still sharing his hot takes.
During an episode of the Hot Ones Versus earlier this month, Wesley, 42, was asked by his former costar Ian Somerhalder to choose one storyline he thought “should’ve never made it out of the writers room.”
“After Nina [Dobrev] left the show [after season 6], they were like, ‘We need to pair Stefan with some romantic partner.’ And then Stefan and Caroline [Candice King] ended up having a wedding and getting married, right?’ Wesley recalled.
Somerhalder, 46, called the onscreen romance “a little forced” but said it “was cute.”
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“It was cute,” Wesley agreed, as Somerhalder noted Wesley and King were both “pretty.”
This isn’t the first time Wesley — and other cast and crew members — weighed in on the divisive relationships at the center of the series.
The Vampire Diaries, which debuted in 2009, introduced viewers to the fictional town of Mystic Falls, Virginia, which was full of supernatural events. At the center of the series was Elena (Dobrev), who found herself caught between the Salvatore brothers, Stefan (Wesley) and Damon (Somerhalder).
Elena initially found herself planning a life with Stefan. Her chemistry with Damon, however, proved too hard to deny after she became a vampire, and they acted on their feelings later in the series. Dobrev, 36, shocked fans when she announced her departure in 2015.
“I always knew I wanted Elena’s story to be a six season adventure, and within those six years I got the journey of a lifetime,” she wrote via Instagram at the time. “I was a human, a vampire, a doppelganger, a crazy immortal, a doppelganger pretending to be human, a human pretending to be a doppelganger. I got kidnapped, killed, resurrected, tortured, cursed, body-snatched, was dead and undead, and there’s still so much more to come before the season finale in May.”
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Dobrev weighed in on Elena’s intense feelings for the Salvatore brothers, adding, “Elena fell in love not once, but twice, with two epic soul mates, and I myself made some of the best friends I’ll ever know and built an extended family I will love forever. … I invite you to hop on the roller coaster ride that is Elena Gilbert’s life and join me as I celebrate her and prepare to say goodbye to her — and to my work family — as I move on to the next chapter of my life.”
The Vampire Diaries ran for two more seasons after Dobrev’s departure, during which her character was under a Sleeping Beauty-like curse. Elena woke up in the series finale long enough to reunite with Damon while Stefan ended up with Caroline. Stefan and Caroline tied the knot at the end of season 8, shortly before Stefan sacrificed his life to save his brother.
While some celebrated, not every fan was thrilled with the idea of Stefan and Caroline’s relationship as many favored the chemistry between Caroline and villain Klaus Mikaelson (Joseph Morgan), who got his own spinoff titled The Originals and ultimately died at the end of the series.
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Cocreator Julie Plec previously discussed how the ending changed from Stelena to Delena endgame because of Dobrev’s absence.
“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 shared on an episode of the “Binge: The Vampire Diaries Podcast” in August 2021. “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.”
