Stories Rob Lowe Only Tells His Friends

Of all 20 chapters in Stories I Only Tell My Friends, Rob says the only parts he went back and rewrote were the chapters about his time on The West Wing. Rob played the role of Sam Seaborn on the Emmy-winning drama from 1999 to 2003, when he abruptly left the show.

For years, fans wondered why Rob left the hugely successful show. "The truth is, I don't really know where it began to go wrong," Rob says. "The real bottom line is when everybody got a raise and success, and they didn't want to give me one, at the end of the day it was like, 'You know what? This is not right. It's just not right.'"

Rob say he never found out why he wasn't granted a raise, but he has no regrets. "I'm not bitter about it at all," he says. "It was a real learning experience because I want my kids, when they're in something that's cool and lauded and everybody's paying attention and it's the greatest thing that ever happened to them—but if behind the scenes, they're not being respected, they need to leave."
 
 Watch the audience ask Rob their burning questions