Lieutenant Kelly Severide is coming back. Variety reports that Taylor Kinney is set to return to Chicago Fire, NBC’s top-rated procedural, for Season 12.
Kinney has played Severide — a lieutenant at Firehouse 51 and an officer in charge of Squad 3 — since Season 1 premiered in 2012. The 42-year-old actor took a sudden leave of absence from the show in January 2022.
A source told Deadline at the time that the actor was exiting the firefighter drama temporarily to deal with a “personal matter.” The cast and crew were informed of Kinney’s leave in January, and future scripts were rewritten to accommodate for his absence.
Kinney’s last appearance was in Season 11, Episode 14, “Run Like Hell.” The writers handled Severide’s exit by sending him off to arson training. In Season 11, Episode 21 “Change of Plans,” we learned that Severide was no longer in Alabama at the arson investigation program, furthering speculation about where the show was going with Severide’s storyline, as well as his relationship with Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo).
Viewers finally got more clarity in May 2023 when Variety confirmed that Kinney would not return as Severide for the remainder of Season 11. But because Season 12 was pushed to 2024 due to the Hollywood strikes, the prospect of seeing Kinney on-screen again in the near future was slowly dwindling.
Now that the WGA strike is over and SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP are in the midst of negotiations, we’ll likely see Kinney reprise his role as Severide in mid-2024 or later. The writer’s room for Chicago Fire reopened after the end of the WGA strike, so we suspect that the team will write Kinney into the script based on the recent news.
While Kinney was gone, another Chicago Fire favorite returned to Firehouse 51. Jesse Spencer, who exited the series in 2021, made a few guest appearances as his beloved character Matthew Casey in Season 11.
During his hiatus, Kinney hasn’t been completely MIA; the former Vampire Diaries actor made a few public appearances in the last nine months. He was seen in photos with his friend’s dog, posing for pictures with fans and appearing alongside his girlfriend Ashley Cruger.
