Soap star Ryan Moloney opens up on being written out of Neighbours after 29 years

Soap star Ryan Moloney has opened up about being written out of Neighbours after three decades on the show.

The 44-year-old actor has played Ramsay Street resident Toadie Rebecchi on the Australian soap since 1995 and stunned fans in June when he announced he was leaving.

“It was not that I decided now was the time, I had that decision made for me,” he told the Standard.

Far from being bitter about being axed after so long on the show, he says he is actually “grateful”.

He explained: “Neighbours is one of those jobs that… it’s a really good job but I kind of want to do something else. I’m actually really grateful that they made that decision for me because I don’t know that I would ever say no to a contract.”

Ryan Moloney says he is ‘grateful’ that the decision to leave was made for him (Jane Zhang/Freevee)

His exit storyline is set to be a good one too and will take place during Neighbours’ Death in the Outback week, which drops on streamer Amazon Freevee August 19 - 22.

His character along with Melanie (Lucinda Cowden) and Holly Hoyland (Lucinda Armstrong Hall) will find themselves in a major predicament in the harsh and unforgiving Australian bush leading to the true colours of another character, Heath Royce (Ethan Panizza) being exposed.

Show bosses are staying tight-lipped on whether Toadie will be killed off, however have stated Moloney will “remain in the Neighbours family” as he transitions to a behind-the-scenes role as a director.

Reflecting on his impressive tenure, Moloney said: “I think in terms of the last 30 years, I’m really glad that this story has come along because in Neighbours the characters tend to have rather large things happen to them and then they just kind of move on and forget about them, whereas in this case it’s very much that his past has actually come back and haunted him and he can’t actually move on from his past and it just messes with him, you know, severely and he just loses control – loses control of his mind.

“I think we got the opportunity to kind of play with mental health issues and take him into a realm that we don’t actually explore and hopefully I’ve done it justice and kind of go places where I’ve never been before and hopefully it all comes to fruition and people actually enjoy it.”