Lauren Graham almost had to drop out of “Gilmore Girls” and that is our darkest timeline

Once upon a time, in the year 2000, Lauren Graham was cast on a TV show called…M.Y.O.B. That stands for “Mind Your Own Business,” and while you might have never heard of this show before (it was 16 years ago) this show almost had a huge impact on Gilmore Girls. How so? Lauren Graham was *this close* to not playing Lorelai because of M.Y.O.B.

It’s okay if you need to sit down for a few moments to collect yourself. This is a huge bombshell, and one — that had it come truuuue!! — would have totally changed the TV landscape of today. Lauren Graham not playing Lorelai Gilmore would, most certainly, be the true definition of our darkest TV timeline.

Lauren’s brand new book, Talking As Fast As I Can, is out today, and in it, she shares a lot of behind-the-scenes information about the early days of Gilmore Girls. Like, the fact that she wasn’t completely available when the time came to audition for the role of Lorelai.

“When I got the script for the Gilmore Girls pilot I was in New York City staying at a friend’s studio apartment, waiting to hear if the series I’d just completed for NBC — Don Roos’s M.Y.O.B. — was going to be picked up for a second season or canceled,” she writes in her book.

“The Gilmore Girls script had actually been sent to me once before, but I hadn’t read it. I didn’t want to read something and fall in love with it only to find out I wasn’t available…. But they hadn’t found anyone [else for the role], and they were still interested [in me]. If I auditioned and they wanted me, they’d go ahead and shoot the pilot with me, hoping [my] other show didn’t get picked up.”

Thankfully, during the summer of 2000, the TV gods were smiling down on us, and M.Y.O.B. was in fact canceled (…eh, sorry about that?) which meant that Lauren was free to do Gilmore Girls. Or, as Lauren explains it:

“What really happened was that I got the part [of Lorelai], shot the pilot, and chewed off my fingernails for the next three months, during which time Gilmore Girls was picked up at the WB, but M.Y.O.B. wasn’t canceled at NBC — there was still the possibility of a second season.”

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That second season of M.Y.O.B. never happened, Lauren went on to play Lorelai, and well, the rest is history.