The Desus and Mero breakup sounds like it was a pretty long time coming

“When we signed to Showtime, we signed individual deals,” he says. “It was always, We’re gonna do our own things at some point. The way it ended seemed mad abrupt and weird, but that’s the way T.V. is. People pull the plug on T.V. s**t all the time.”

Some viewers speculated that the growing aspirations of “Hollywood Desus,” aka Daniel Baker, clashed with his co-star’s more raw, spontaneous approach. (While Desus recently took a more high-profile gig guest-hosting for Jimmy Kimmel Live, he described himself as “fired from Showtime” during his monologue.) Blackbird Spyplane asked Mero to weigh in on these rumors.

“There were people we thought could have helped us turn the show back to what it was at Vice, where it felt fresh and way more edgy—genuinely different and good,” he says. “And Showtime was not trying to do that. That was the beginning of the end. It was giving me mad anxiety, but I’m a first-generation immigrant kid, like, You never quit your job before you have a new one. But I think Desus was like, ‘F**k it.’ And that was the end of the podcast, too.”

While the interview does not address the previous report that the alleged “asshole behavior” of manager Victor Lopez led to Showtime axing the series, Mero does talk about his own ambitions, including reviving talks on a long-gestating sitcom co-created by Vampire Weekend singer Ezra Koenig; he has previously shown more of an interest in acting, appearing in the Netflix movie Vampires Vs. The Bronx. Of course, he was also asked about the possibility of a reunion with Desus.

“Never say never,” Mero says. “Right now I think we’re on different trajectories as far as what we wanna do.”