When High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (HSMTMTS) first premiered in 2019 on Disney+, fans couldn't imagine what the show would look like without Olivia Rodrigo playing Nini Salazar-Roberts. Unfortunately, a Nini-less version of HSMTMTS was imminent after the end of the second season.
In the third season, Olivia Rodrigo only appeared as Nini in a recurring role until she was written out of the show. Fans were given a glimpse of a Nini-less version of the show because she only appeared in three episodes and her storyline was very separate from the other characters'. Unfortunately, the upcoming fourth season will be the series' first to not feature its original leading lady. So, why exactly did Olivia Rodrigo leave HSMTMTS?
Nini Was HSMTMTS' Disney Darling Leading Lady
There's no doubt about it that Olivia Rodrigo was a Disney darling before HSMTMTS first premiered. She starred in Bizaardvark, which ran for three seasons on Disney Channel before moving to HSMTMTS. Olivia Rodrigo's talent shines in HSMTMTS, especially in its debut season. From the start, it was clear that her character, Nini, was the leading lady to Joshua Bassett's leading man, Ricky Bowen. Nini and Ricky were childhood loves who broke up before the events of the pilot because he was unable to say "I love you." In the pilot, Ricky decides to join the school musical to win back Nini's love.
HSMTMTS is a spinoff show of the highly popular Disney Channel Original Movie trilogy, High School Musical. Fans immediately could see that Ricky and Nini were meant to be the Troy and Gabriella of HSMTMTS. They even played Troy and Gabriella in the school musical. When the pair finally worked out their differences and got back together at the end of the first season, it seemed like they would be the show's endgame.
Why Did Olivia Rodrigo Leave HSMTMTS?
In January 2021, before the second season of HSMTMTS premiered, Olivia Rodrigo's real-life music career started to skyrocket when she released her debut single, "Drivers License." The single's success led to Olivia Rodrigo releasing her Grammy-winning debut album, SOUR. But Olivia's rise to superstar status as a real-life singer-songwriter came at the price of her role as Nini.
While the second season of HSMTMTS aired, a new storyline was incorporated for Nini after her second breakup with Ricky, where a song that she wrote about her broken relationship with him, called "The Rose Song," unintentionally went viral when Carlos (Frankie Rodriguez) posted it on social media. Not only did this create some of the major tension that broke Nini and Ricky, but it jumpstarted a storyline for Nini where she started to seriously pursue a career as a singer-songwriter. She's even offered the chance to work with Gina Porter's (Sofia Wylie) older brother, Jamie (Jordan Fisher), who is a major music producer in Los Angeles. This begins the end of Nini's main role in the show.
Nini's Future on HSMTMTS
Before the third season of HSMTMTS premiered, Olivia Rodrigo announced that she was embarking on her first tour. Unfortunately, this meant that she had very limited time to film, and her involvement in the show was reduced to a recurring role. All of Olivia Rodrigo's scenes for the third season were filmed in just three days before her tour and her storyline was separated from all the other East High Wildcats. While her friends were at Camp Shallow Lake, Nini was in Los Angeles pursuing her music career and meeting her biological father.
In the third season's finale, Nini returns to Camp Shallow Lake to support her friends while they put on a production of Frozen: The Musical. At the end of the visit, Nini decides to leave East High and move west permanently to pursue her career. While the show's creator, Tim Federle, told Entertainment Weekly that Olivia Rodrigo is always welcome back on HSMTMTS, this ending served as a bittersweet goodbye for Nini. It's poetic that Nini moves on to a new stage of her life, paralleling Olivia Rodrigo's shift in her real-life career.
In a lovely homage to Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License," Nini is last seen driving away from Camp Shallow Lake as HSMTMTS' empowering original anthem, "Born To Be Brave," plays in the background. For now, it's time for fans to say a hard goodbye to Nini Salazar-Roberts, but since this is a tight-knit ensemble show, updates on Nini's new life will probably be mentioned in the fourth season and beyond. The possibility for Olivia Rodrigo to return in a future season can also never be ruled out because "once a Wildcat, always a Wildcat."