"I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so seen as I did the day I watched The Sex Lives of College Girls for the first time. I found a little bit of myself in every single main character and immediately texted my group chat to determine who was a Kimberly, Bela, Whitney, or Leighton. It was like watching Sex and the City, except a genuinely relatable, collegiate, Gen Z version. I couldn’t get enough.
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Now, though, The Sex Lives of College Girls Season 3 is here, without one of its main characters: Leighton (played by Reneé Rapp). Queer girls across the internet obsessed over Leighton’s gay mean girl persona when the show first aired in 2021. In Season 3, the writers are phasing Leighton out after Reneé Rapp announced she would be leaving the show in July of 2023.
To say that I am a massive Leighton fan would be an understatement. Watching Rapp play that role fundamentally changed how I perceived myself and my sexuality in college. Plus, Leighton had the cutest outfits out of anyone on the show—how could I not love her? At the same time, I still loved the show overall. So, is The Sex Lives of College Girls still worth the watch without Leighton? Here are my thoughts.
Why is Reneé Rapp leaving The Sex Lives of College Girls?
First, a little celeb gossip backstory for context. The Sex Lives of College Girls aired Season 2 in late 2022. Shortly after, Reneé Rapp dropped her first full-length album, Snow Angel—and announced she would no longer be acting to focus on her music. “Acting was just my way of tricking everyone that I warranted attention,” the pop star told Variety in 2022. For Rapp, music has always been the dream, and roles like Leighton or Regina George in Mean Girls were stepping stones to where she wanted to go. Once Rapp announced her departure, The Sex Lives of College Girls creator Mindy Kaling said on her Instagram, “We love @reneerapp so much and of course will be so sad to say goodbye Leighton Murray. But we can’t wait to see our friend on tour.”
If you believe a few widespread internet rumors, you might think that Rapp’s reasons for leaving the show ran deeper than just wanting to pursue music. Around the time that she quit the show, several outlets reported that she and Kaling butted heads during production. However, neither Rapp nor Kaling has outwardly criticized the other—so as much as angsty entry-level Gen Zers may want to think Poison Poison is about Kaling, it’s probably not.
What is Season 3 of The Sex Lives of College Girls about?
The end of Season 2 of The Sex Lives of College Girls left Bela, Whitney, Leighton, and Kimberly in some pretty precarious spots at the end of their freshman year at Essex. Bela had just requested to transfer schools after being ousted from the comedy magazine she created; Kimberly and Whitney were at odds over Kimberly kissing Whitney’s ex; and Leighton had just chosen between two girls she was dating. If Season 3 were to take its natural course after that final episode, we would have seen Bela grappling with the decision to change schools, Leighton experiencing her first serious queer relationship, and Kimberly and Whitney presumably working it out on the remix.
However, Rapp’s departure from the show meant all of these dynamics needed to turn around rather quickly. The first episode of Season 3 sees each of the girls returning from summer break, headed into their sophomore years at Essex. Kimberly and Whitney are still not speaking, and Bela is informed that she can’t transfer due to her low GPA. When we first see Leighton, she’s driving to the Essex campus with her father and her girlfriend, Alicia, when Alicia receives a mysterious phone call. By the end of the episode (spoiler alert), Alicia announces she is moving to Boston to work in politics, and Leighton decides to transfer to MIT to go with her.
Why I think the show will struggle without Leighton’s character
It may be that I’m no longer a college girl myself, but even with Leighton’s minor appearances in the first episode of Season 3, I felt underwhelmed by the same show that I was totally obsessed with just two years ago. To no fault of the showrunners, having the plotline of a potential transfer shift from one main character to another within a single episode was… awkward. Frankly, I would have rather seen Kimberly, Whitney, and Bela moving forward without Leighton altogether instead of the song-and-dance that seemed to outro Rapp’s character in episode one. Watching Leighton abruptly opt to leave Essex is almost more painful than simply skipping the explanation and time-jumping forward.
On a deeper level, though, I believe that The Sex Lives of College Girls Season 3 will stumble without a Leighton plotline because people (myself included) love a redemption arc. Think Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl, or Damon in Vampire Diaries. Bela, Whitney, and Kimberly, as their characters were introduced in Season 1, are all pretty likable. Leighton, on the other hand, is not: She has a lot of internalized homophobia, she’s classist, and she’s rude. In Season 2, she pushes through some of these issues, but not all. Without Leighton’s full storyline in Season 3, viewers won’t get to see her complete her full redemption arc—putting more pressure for character development on three other characters that were already a bit more developed.
Thankfully, it appears that The Sex Lives of College Girls will continue to center queer storylines after Rapp’s departure. British actress Mia Rodgers plays Taylor, a witty freshman who takes on the gay mean girl role in Bela’s first meeting as a Friendly Advisor and Friend (FAF). However, without a full third season to explain Leighton’s transformation from closeted prepster to out-and-proud, cuffed math genius, The Sex Lives of College Girls loses the opportunity to complete one of the most interesting TV character arcs since Jamie Tartt in Ted Lasso. Though I’ll still tune in to see Bela, Whitney, and Kimberly in their sophomore year at Essex, I can’t say I’m half as excited to see The Sex Lives of College Girls without Leighton.
Emma Ginsberg, Associate Editor
Emma is a writer, editor, and podcast producer who has been creating at The Everygirl since 2021. She writes for all sections on the site, edits the Entertainment and Community sections, and helps produce The Everygirl Podcast. With a degree in American Studies, Emma is especially passionate about evaluating the impact pop culture and internet culture have on the day-to-day lives of real women.