Ian Somerhalder Reveals Why He Quit Acting After Netflix Fiasco

Ian Somerhalder has spent the past seven years far from Hollywood, trading red carpets and soundstages for a quieter life on a sustainable farm in the countryside near Santa Barbara, California.

Now, the 47-year-old Vampire Diaries star is opening up about what ultimately pushed him away from acting, saying the breaking point came during his struggle to rescue his Netflix sci-fi series V Wars, which he described as virtually “unwatchable.”

Speaking last week on Haley on the Go, Somerhalder said he had relocated his entire family to Northern Ontario and spent nearly a year pouring himself into the project, only to be devastated by the version that was delivered.

Somerhalder, an Actor Award winner, had been enthusiastic about leading the 10-episode adaptation of Jonathan Maberry’s comic books, playing Dr. Luther Swann, a scientist racing to contain a pandemic that turns people into vampires.

He recalled telling the studio that he did not want his name attached to the finished series, even offering to return the money he had been paid and hand back millions of dollars if necessary.

According to Somerhalder, the response from executives was disbelief, with the studio questioning what he meant and why he would make such an offer.

The Louisiana-born entrepreneur said he was eventually given “creative control” over V Wars, but only after he personally secured a $6 million budget to shoot six additional days of reshoots.

‘I ended up in the hospital [from exhaustion]. Literally, the full body just shut down,’ Somerhalder said.

Netflix still decided to ‘quietly cancel’ V Wars in March 2020 – ironically at the dawn of the real-life COVID-19 pandemic.

‘The powers that be at Netflix were like, “It’s unfortunate. Yes, it shouldn’t have happened. We can’t go back, because it would set a precedent that would be terrible, so the show is done,”” he said.

Somerhalder looked at himself in the mirror and then turned to his wife Nikki Reed, whose final acting role was the V Wars character Rachel Thompson.

‘I was like, man, I’m 40 years old. I don’t want to spend two years of my life doing something, working this hard, one year fully unpaid, for this executive who had issues in high school, so they want to exert power now,’ the Lost alum said.

‘I am not here for my career and livelihood to be dictated by someone who has mommy or daddy issues, or they weren’t popular in school. So I pulled the plug. That was it. I walked away.’

He continued: ‘These executives are bi***ing at each other, and I’m like, are you kidding me? Done. I’m out. That’s really the honest, kind of controversial way of why I walked away from the business.’

The Daily Mail has reached out to Somerhalder’s publicist for comment, but did not immediately hear back.

After going ‘eight figures’ in debt working for a start-up, the licensed pilot co-founded Brother’s Bond Bourbon in 2021 with his Vampire Diaries ‘sibling’ Paul Wesley, and they successfully secured $7.5 million in funding last year.

Somerhalder and Reed launched a pharmaceutical-grade powdered supplement brand called The Absorption Company in 2023 with business partners Zeke Bronfman and Nate Medow.

The 38-year-old Twilight alum is still running the sustainable jewelry company Bayou With Love she founded in 2017.

Reed – who boasts 7.2 million social media followers – is also every bit the influencer with paid partnerships for brands like Signature Hardware, MagnaWave PEMF, Joi Women’s Wellness, Leica Camera, Prenuvo, Genexa and Cleobella.

Meanwhile, Somerhalder – who boasts 60.5 million social media followers – commands $549 per video on Cameo.

On July 25, the married couple of 11 years will celebrate the ninth birthday of their daughter Bodhi Soleil Reed Somerhalder, and they’re also proud parents of a three-year-old son whose name has not been made public.

Somerhalder and Reed – who both played vampires – originally began dating in 2014 just a few months after she filed for divorce from American Idol alum Paul McDonald.