Rob Lowe compares his time on 'The West Wing' to a 'super unhealthy relationship' and says leaving was 'the best thing I ever did'

• Rob Lowe has opened up about his decision to leave "The West Wing."
• On "Podcrushed," he compared his time on the show to being in a "super unhealthy relationship."

Almost two decades after waving goodbye to"The West Wing," Rob Lowe has opened up about the reason why he left.

The 59-year-old actor starred as Sam Seaborn, the White House deputy communications director, in the first four seasons of the NBC political drama between 1999 and 2003.

Asked about his decision to walk away from the show at the height of its popularity on Wednesday's episode of Stitcher Studios' "Podcrushed" podcast, Lowe said simply: "I felt very undervalued."

"It happens in any workplace. You can be in an environment where people sandbag you, want to see you fail, don't appreciate you, whatever it is," he told hosts Penn Badgley, Nava Kavelin, and Sophie Ansari.

Lowe added that whenever he talks "to actors who complain about their relationship on their shows," and shares with them his own experience from "The West Wing," they are left surprised.

"Whenever I share my stories, people are like, 'I will never share my own stories again,'" he said, adding that his stories "would make your hair stand on end."

"I shared some of them in my book, but purposely didn't share half of the other ones because it would make the people involved look so bad that I didn't want to do it to them," Lowe said, referencing his 2012 memoir, "Stories I Only Tell My Friends."

"So I did not have a good experience," Lowe went on to say, adding that he repeatedly tried to make it work but decided to finally walk away to set a good example for his kids.

"What happened was my kids were getting to a certain age where I could see them having first girlfriends and friends and being in a relationship that was abusive," he said.

The actor then compared being on the show with dating a "popular" girl in high school.

"She's the popular girl, everybody likes her, she's beautiful, it must be great. All the things that people would say about making 'The West Wing' to me," he explained.

"If I couldn't walk away from it, how can I empower my kids to walk away from it?" he asked.

Lowe concluded: "I walked away from the most popular girl at school, but I also knew that it was a super unhealthy relationship, and it was the best thing I ever did."

At the time of his exit in 2003, Lowe released a statement in which he stated that "it has been increasingly clear, for quite a while, that there was no longer a place for Sam Seaborn on 'The West Wing.'"

He went on to say that he was "grateful" and "proud" of his time on the show, but did not share the reason behind his decision.

Rumors at the time suggested that Lowe had been unhappy that his episodic salary was the same as the majority of his costars, and significantly less than Martin Sheen's, who played the president.

Despite his issues with working on the show, Lowe reprised his role in the Aaron Sorkin-created drama's final episode in 2006.