Ashlee Simpson to Get Killed Off on 'Melrose Place'

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The cast ensemble for "Melrose Place" will soon say goodbye to Ashlee Simpson. According to EW, her character, Violet Foster, will be killed off after the twelfth episode of the show, which is scheduled to be aired in January. Also joining Ashlee to leave the hit CW show will be Colin Egglesfield, who portrays Auggie Kirkpatrick.

Revealing the reason why the show has to kill off Ashlee and Colin's characters, the executive producer for the series Todd Slavkin says in an interview with EW, "Well, we always knew that this murder mystery would end in episode 12." Then, he continues, "And we always knew that [Ashlee's] character of Violet would be instrumental in that as a suspect, and [Colin's character of] Augie as well. And once that murder mystery was solved, she would go on her way. That was the original plan going into the development of the show."

Still in the same interview, Todd admits that the production team has planned for Ashlee to move out after episode 12. "Because we felt that once the murder mystery was resolved, the tone of the show was going to shift into a much more fun, romantic, sexy upbeat kind of show, and [her] character would move on," he details.

As for Colin's character, Todd states, "Colin was always meant to be the ultimate suspect." He explains further to EW, "And his brooding alcoholic [character] tonally didn't fit the paradigm moving into post-murder mystery 'Melrose Place.' "

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