Anna Faris responds to Chuck Lorre saying he never should have hired her for Mom: "Yikes"

Faris said "Of course it hurts" after Lorre wrote in his new memoir that he shouldn't have hired her for the CBS sitcom.

By William Hughes  |  October 15, 2026 | 8:39pm
Allison Janney and Anna Faris in Mom, Screenshot: YouTube
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Anna Faris responds to Chuck Lorre saying he never should have hired her for Mom:

TV mega-producer Chuck Lorre has a new memoir, Sitcom, coming out, and it apparently pulls very few punches on the people he’s worked with over the years. Here, for instance (per Deadline), is Lorre talking about Anna Faris, who starred in seven seasons of his hit CBS series Mom, earning years’ worth of strong reviews for her portrayal of a mother and recovering addict, before departing the show in 2020: “I wasn’t sure Anna would be appropriate for this kind of material,” Lorre wrote, citing vague concerns with Faris’ personal life and drawing parallels to his earlier (and highly contentious) working relationship with Charlie Sheen. “As the years went by, it became apparent that my initial reluctance to hire Anna was, in fact, correct. After six years, she left the show for mysterious reasons that were not mysterious to anyone on the show.”

Even accounting for Lorre’s bruised feelings about the Sheen affair, “I never should have hired her in the first place” is a fairly harsh assessment of someone who, along with co-star Allison Janney, brought Mom a hefty amount of critical acclaim, especially in its early run. Faris, certainly, sounds like she’s been blindsided by Lorre’s account. “Yikes,” she wrote in a statement on her Instagram on Thursday. “Yes, I read a few things. I really didn’t see that coming. Of course it hurts. Chuck gave me a job I loved, and for seven years I never took a day of it for granted. I’m proud of what we made together, and nothing changes how grateful I am for those people and those years.”

Faris (who largely disappeared from the limelight following her Mom departure, returning to more regular acting work earlier this year) went on to acknowledge the issues Lorre was apparently content to wink knowingly at, adding, “I’ve been sober for a year and a half. I was on a show about recovery and then I lived it. Now I’m healthy, I’m working, and I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. If anyone reading this is where I was, I hope that’s useful. It gets better. I’m proof.”

Mom continued on for a single season after Faris’ departure; she didn’t return for its series finale in 2021.

 
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