Max Bowden got burnout on ‘EastEnders’.
Max Bowden is no longer playing Ben Mitchell
The 29-year-old actor - who played Ben Mitchell, the son of Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth) and Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) between 2019 and 2024 until his character got imprisoned in America - opted to say goodbye to the BBC soap opera because he was “very tired” after doing some emotionally gruelling stories over “nearly 600 episodes” such as his eating disorder, sexual assault and other lauded performances.
Speaking on YouTube series ‘The Lewis Nicholls Show’: "The important thing was my time was ready. I was very tired, and like I said, I wasn't me, I wasn't.
"The Max sat in front of you today was kind of a ghost, and they recognised that – I recognised that.
"I did nearly six hundred episodes in five years, which is a hell of a lot, and it was time for a rest. The character was tired, I was tired, they [the producers] were probably tired of me being tired.
"From an honest perspective, I think yeah, a lot of it was that I needed to go for a bit. I needed to go work on me, get myself back to a place of really good mental health, focus on healing and also be a dad."
Max also admitted that playing out the recent storyline which saw Ben's ex-girlfriend Lola Pearce (Danielle Harold) - with whom his character has daughter Lexi (Isabella Brown) - succumb to a brain tumour had taken its toll on him as a performer.
He continued: "It laid a lot out on the table, and it exposed me to a lot of vulnerability which probably at the time I didn't navigate well.
"It was a tough old time, but you know what, I'm a hell of a lot stronger for it. That was definitely the hardest period of my professional life."