There are a few television shows that have a massive fan base behind them, and The Vampire Diaries is definitely one of them. The dramatic series ran on The CW from 2009 until 2017 and had eight seasons and 171 episodes. Starring Nina Dobrev as Elena Gilbert, a teenage girl who falls for two vampire brothers, Damon and Stefan Salvatore, it seems like the show racked up tons of fans and praise pretty much immediately. If you weren't watching from the very beginning, your friends probably told you to start watching ASAP. As soon as you watched just one episode, you were probably totally hooked. That's what tends to happen with these types of shows. Some people might consider a teen vampire drama a guilty pleasure but, hey, you really don't have to feel any kind of guilt for being so into it. It's just simply a fun, enjoyable show.
Read on to find out 7 behind-the-scenes secrets from The Vampire Diaries!
7. Nina Dobrev Reportedly Quit Because She Was Heartbroken
Sometimes when two actors star on a TV show together, and their characters are super in love, romance blooms off-screen, too. That's what happened for The Vampire Diaries stars Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder. It's no secret that the two of them were in a serious relationship for a period of time... but what some fans don't know is that a lot of people believe that's why Nina chose to leave the show.
Apparently,
Nina didn't like that her ex was already in a new relationship with Nikki Reed, who was one of her good friends.
She reportedly didn't want to be around him anymore and found it too much to take. It also sounds like she and Nikki stopped being friends when Nikki started dating Ian, which, well, makes sense. It's not that great when your best friend falls for the person that you used to love.
6. There Was Too Much Romantic Drama Off-Screen
When there's a lot of onscreen drama happening, you would think that it would stay there. After all, a lot of television casts pride themselves on being a happy family, and there are a lot of situations where that is totally true.
Apparently,
there was a lot of romantic drama on the set of The Vampire Diaries and it all had to do with Ian.
He reportedly cheated on Nina two different times. Once he was with another co-star, and later, he was with Nikki Reed. It's not completely clear if he was with Nikki after making a clean break with Nina or if their relationships overlapped. But some fans believe that there were some affairs going on. If that's true, it's definitely too bad. No one deserves that.
5. The Cast Was Arrested
As the story goes, several members of the cast -- Sara Canning, Candice Accola, Nina Dobrev, and Kayla Ewell -- were doing a photo shoot with Tyler Shields, a photographer. The photo shoot took place on a freeway. Why were they arrested? Apparently, they weren't allowing drivers to focus and, you know, actually drive down the freeway. There were also rumors that they might have been showing off their chests as well.
E.com published mug shots of the cast members. In the end, the photographer paid the fine (which was $4,000).
This was a bit of a scandal because this happened around the time that the show started airing and so it's safe to say that's not what you want your stars to be known for.
4. Ian Somerhalder Was Accused Of Fraud
Ian Somerhalder is known for being quite the hunk, and that's certainly true of his character, Damon. It's impossible to picture The Vampire Diaries without Damon as the super hot, evil brother of Stefan, Elena's other love interest.
Ian has also been in the news for things other than his good looks. He's very into animal rights and has done a lot for that cause. He was accused of fraud. It turned out that this was false, but it still sucks when a major cast member on your show gets accused of something like this. Back in 2014, his Ian Somerhalder Foundation was under fire. People said that this foundation only gave $550 to a worthy cause and Ian took the rest of the $400,072 that he got.
3. Elena And Damon Weren't Going To Date At First
It's always interesting to look at your favorite television couples and think, what if they had never gotten together at all? The show would definitely look super different... and maybe you wouldn't have been such an obsessive fan. Fans always love a good love story, and TVD has a whole bunch, thanks to the love triangle among the three main characters.
As it turns out, Elena and Damon weren't going to date at first. As showrunner Julie Plec said, according to Fame10.com,
"In season two, there was an influence pushing Damon and Elena together faster than we would have ever done it..."
"...And we did everything we could to try to create obstacles, to tear them apart, to bring Stefan and Elena closer together. But you could feel the magnetic pull – not just of Twitter, but the fandom really rooting for this."
2. Ian Somerhalder And Paul Wesley Said No Way To A Spin-Off
When a show is as successful as The Vampire Diaries, it's only natural that fans would really want a spin-off of some sort. And, well, TVD did technically get a spin-off with The Originals which was about Klaus Mikaelson and his vampire/werewolf fam. But there was talk of another spin-off when The Vampire Diaries was winding down, and apparently, two of the show's main stars didn't think that it would happen.
According to fans, both Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley shot down the idea of starring in a spin-off when they were asked about in interviews.
Sure, it makes sense that they would want to do something else with their careers and move on from the show, as that's only natural. But this was probably upsetting news for fans who wanted to keep the stories going about the vampire brothers.
1. The Co-Showrunner Originally Called It A Twilight Rip-Off
Julie Plec worked as the showrunner on the series and Kevin Williamson was an executive producer. If Kevin Williamson sounds like a familiar name, that's because he created Dawson's Creek and wrote a bunch of horror movies like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
When Julie Plec told Kevin Williamson about the series and wanted him to work with her, he said no at first, as the story goes. He didn't want to work on the series and he had one major reason. What was it? Well, he said that it was a rip-off of the Twilight franchise. He ended up changing his mind. Although of course both stories involve a teenage girl and vampires, it's clear that there are some major differences between them.