TV Molly Ringwald recalls being fired from Facts of Life when she was 12 By Maureen Lee Lenker Maureen Lee Lenker Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight, is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen. EW's editorial guidelines Published on January 30, 2019 07:36PM EST Molly Ringwald may have been a 1980s "It" girl thanks to her roles in John Hughes films, but her early career was a little bit bumpy. While sitting down with PeopleTV's Couch Surfing, the actress revealed she was fired from one of her first major acting gigs, featuring on The Facts of Life when she was 12 years old. Ringwald explained that the show initially began with this concept of an all-girls school focusing on numerous female characters throughout the first season. RELATED VIDEO: Stephen King gave Molly Ringwald an unedited manuscript of The Stand Eventually, they decided to narrow the focus to four girls: Natalie, Tootie, Blair, and originally Ringwald's character, Molly (naturally). "Then they changed their minds and then fired me, which was kind of hard as a 12 year old girl," she recalled. "What they said is, they wanted something closer to Lisa Whelchel, who played Blair, they wanted something closer to her age and I was too young at the time. I was a little bit of a different generation." Gary Null/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Ringwald did have the option to return to the show from time-to-time, but she admits dealing with the rejection was too hard for her at such a young age. "Once you've been a regular and then you're booted to be a semi-regular, it was really hard and humiliating," she said. "My mom said, 'Do you really want to do this?' and I said, 'No,' and that was it. I wasn't on the show anymore." This formative experience made Ringwald cautious, so much so that she's been reluctant to indulge her own daughter's interest in acting until very recently. Watch the clip above for more. Related content: Molly Ringwald is against a Breakfast Club reboot Molly Ringwald reveals she's returning for more Riverdale Molly Ringwald finds The Breakfast Club 'troubling' in the #MeToo era