Former Expedition X star Jessica Chobot has addressed her departure from the Discovery TV show.
For seven seasons, Chobot was one of the hosts of Expedition X, a documentary series chronicling a team of supernatural investigators who look into strange paranormal happenings.
Before the start of Season 8, Chobot announced her surprise departure from Expedition X.
Why Did Jessica Chobot Leave Expedition X?
While Chobot's departure from Expedition X has been official for some time now, the ex-host has been quiet on her real reasons for departing the series.
In August 2024, Chobot revealed she was working on something new with Discovery, which explained her sudden exit from the show.
However, in a more recent interview with The Creaking Door Paranormal Radio podcast, Chobot shared some more insight into her reasons for leaving. The host said she felt it "was time to move on" and that some events made her feel she had to "tap out."
Chobot elaborated saying she loved and respected the crew of people working on Expedition X and that she "really [does] truly miss it:"
"I loved our crew. The people that we were working with on the day-to-day were fantastic and it's a really hard job to put all of that stuff together, especially for folks that are at the home office. Because we're out shooting, we're on the ground, that's hard enough as it is. That's a whole separate ball of wax. But in the meantime, things fall through all the time. You lose your permits, and then COVID happened. That was its own bag of what the hell. And so, these people at the office that are trying to put this together are also struggling to make it all work. So yeah, I had a really great and really worked with a lot of phenomenal people in that respect. And I really do truly miss it. It's a bummer. I'm not gonna lie, my heart...
...So I was definitely very aware of how fortunate I was. So yeah, in that regard, it really sucks that it has to end, at least in that space."
Chobot added that the winter prior to the shooting of Season 8 was "a rough one" and was seemingly when she made the decision to leave the show:
"Well, it felt like that for a while. The rest of the winter... all of this kind of went down in winter leading up to when they were about to shoot the season and... yeah, winter was rough. Winter was a rough one. Because yeah, nobody likes to feel bad about this stuff..."
The star then relayed how she "[got] over it" and decided to "come up with some other stuff to do," alluding to her work on her next series:
But eventually, you feel the feels. You get over it. And you're like, 'Well, nobody's going to help me buy myself, so I'm gonna come up with some other stuff to do.'"
The True Reason Behind Jessica Chobot's Exit
It still remains a bit of a puzzle as to why Chobot felt she had to leave Expedition X.
While Chobot has quickly announced work on a new TV show, her responses on this recent podcast seem to indicate that this new project came after her departure from Expedition X, rather than being the reason for it.
Chobot served as host of the documentary series for seven years, so it very well could have been personal reasons that led her to want to leave or to try something different. But her responses, particularly her emphasis on how much she misses the team, seem to indicate that there were issues on Expedition X that forced her hand.
Time will tell whether more details about what went on behind the scenes are ever revealed, but in the meantime, fans can look forward to more of Chobot on her new mysterious paranormal-type show.
Expedition X is available to stream on Discovery+ and Max.
