Emmerdale star Max Parker has quit the ITV series after two years of playing Luke Posner.
The actor first showed up on the series in August 2019 and will exit the role weeks after his character was outed as gay.
His character's brother Lee - who raped Luke's girlfriend Victoria Sugden - was also killed off, and Luke may have also been involved in the death.
Robert Sugden - who hit Lee over the head with a shovel - wasn't the only one involved as Luke had confessed to knocking Lee out.
A source revealed to The Sun : “Max was never going to stay on the soap for years.
“He’s ambitious and a talented guy - he’s already auditioning for new roles and excited for the future.
“But never say never - there’s always a chance he could return one day.”
Mirror have contacted reps for comment.
Although Max could be leaving the series, he did find love with his co-star Kris Mochrie.
He said speculation about his relationship with the 31-year-old Kris - who plays Lee - after they went public on social media meant he came out to his grandparents before he felt he was ready, as he wanted to be the first to tell them.
However, he opened up to Attitude, and said they told him they accepted him and were happy he is happy, much to his relief.
Max recalled feeling "shame" as a child realising he was gay in 1990s Manchester where it was cool to like "girls and football" and his dad grilled him on images he found on the computer that Max had been looking at.
“I was so embarrassed," he laughed.
"I remember I searched online how to delete all of the [computer] history so no one could find it, and I deleted like, the main drive and broke the computer.”
Max added: “One of the main reasons why it took me quite a while to come out is because my parents are so accepting and they’ve always said to me, ‘You know, if you’re gay you can tell us’, and I’m really stubborn and I don’t want to be proven ‘wrong’, so I was trying to prove to myself ‘No no, they’re wrong, I’m not gay’.”
