Quote from Oladosun Joshua Segun on March 18, 2026, 11:48 AM

Jesse Metcalfe is giving this withered part some water. The former cast member of Desperate Housewives, who portrayed teen gardener John Rowland on the ABC program more than 20 years ago, discussed how his character changed following his breakthrough 2004 season.

“I was fired from Desperate Housewives. After the first season, they didn’t really know where else to take my storyline,” in the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast's March 17 episode, 47-year-old Jesse gave an explanation. “The creator Marc Cherry was like, ‘Hey, this isn’t Desperate House-gardeners. This is Desperate Housewives. So unfortunately, you’re not gonna be a series regular moving forward on the show. We’re gonna bring you back intermittently.’”

As promised, his character, who had an affair with Eva Longoria's Gabrielle Solis in the first season, had sporadic appearances on the show for an additional four years, but his plot came to an end in the sixth season. By then, the contentious romance between John and Gabrielle had ended, and he had moved out of town to concentrate on his new restaurant.

Media outlets have contacted Cherry's representative and ABC for comment, but they have not received a response.

Jesse went on to land the title role in the 2006 movie John Tucker Must Die opposite Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Sophia Bush, and Arielle Kebbel, so he said he wasn't heartbroken regarding leaving the show.

“I was like, ‘Hey, cool. No big deal. I’m gonna be a movie star,’” he wrote about his response at the moment. “I did come back intermittently, but I wasn’t hit super hard. I took it in stride because I thought, ‘This is only the beginning.’”

Jesse has already thought back on his gardening days and the purported drama that pervaded Wisteria Lane both on and off screen. In fact, he said that he had no idea that his co-stars Eva, Felicity Huffman, Nicollette Sheridan, Marcia Cross, and Teri Hatcher had reportedly been at odds over the show's previous seasons.

“There’s a lot of stories about all the drama on that set between some of our lead females,” according to People, Jesse informed the audience during his Southfork Experience panel in Dallas last August. “I was oblivious to it, basically, because I was just so thrilled to be on a show and just so in the moment. I was just happy to have a job.”

After all, the former cast member of Chesapeake Shores said that he "went through an entire pilot season" trying out for several projects at the time, but he "didn't book anything."

“I tested for Desperate Housewives, which was a recast, right at the end of that pilot season and ended up booking it,” Jesse added. “I was just kind of riding the wave, because that show really broke me. I had everything coming at me and I was just enjoying it.”