Sweet Magnolias star JoAnna Garcia Swisher is breaking her silence after the show’s shocking cancellation after five seasons.
“How do you say goodbye to something that became so much more than a job? Seven years. Five seasons. A million tiny moments that somehow became a whole life,” Garcia Swisher, 47, wrote via Instagram on Sunday, September 20. “Sweet Magnolias came into my world during a chapter that held some of my deepest loss and, somehow, some of my greatest joy.”
Garcia Swisher, who explained that both of her parents died during production of the first few seasons, starred on Sweet Magnolias as Maddie Townsend. The Netflix hit followed Maddie’s life in the small town of Serenity, South Carolina, with her best friends, Dana Sue (Brooke Elliott) and Helen Decatur (Heather Headley) by her side.
“In a time when I wasn’t always sure how to keep moving forward, Serenity gave me somewhere to go,” Garcia Swisher continued on Sunday. “These people gave me somewhere to belong. They made me laugh when I was sure I had forgotten how. They let me be sad when I needed to be. They showed up. Again and again and again, and maybe that’s what I will carry with me most.”
Netflix announced on Friday, September 18, that Sweet Magnolias was canceled and will not return for a once-potential season 6.
“This show was always about showing up for the people you love. About friends becoming family. About life not turning out exactly the way you planned, and choosing to build something beautiful anyway,” Garcia Swisher added. “Somewhere along the way, while we were telling those stories, we started living them too. To every single person who made this show, and every single person who watched it, loved it, shared it, and found a little piece of themselves in Serenity … thank you.”
She continued, “You will never fully know what you gave me. Five seasons. Seven years. One really, really beautiful chapter of my life. I’m not quite sure I’m ready to close it, but I am so incredibly grateful I got to live it.”
In the wake of Sweet Magnolias’ shocking conclusion, Garcia Swisher will reunite with showrunner Sheryl J. Anderson to adapt Lauren Edmondson’s novel Ladies of the House for Netflix.
“From the moment I read Lauren Edmondson’s Ladies of the House, I fell completely in love with Daisy, Cricket and Wallis: their relationships, their messiness, their strength, and most of all, their heart,” Garcia Swisher said in a Friday statement. “I am beyond excited to continue to tell meaningful, female-driven stories alongside the incredible Sheryl Anderson. … Netflix has been my creative home for the past seven years, and I couldn’t imagine a better place, or a better team, to tell this story.”
All five seasons of Sweet Magnolias are streaming on Netflix.
