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Melrose Costar: We're Going to Miss Ashlee & Colin

Fri., Oct. 23, 2009 10:41 AM PDT by Marc Malkin

Ashlee Simpson, Colin Egglesfield, Melrose Place

Michael Desmond/The CW

While Colin Egglesfield's dismissal from Melrose Place definitely came as a shock to his costars, Ashlee Simpson-Wentz's may not have been as surprising.

Stephanie Jacobsen, who plays med student/escort Lauren Yung on the revived prime time soap, says, "We'll miss them," but Simpson's future was always an unknown.

"I don't know whether Ashlee's involvement with the show was going to continue beyond the murder-mystery storyline she's been involved in," Jacobsen told me at last night's Vanity Fair/Guess? event for Invisible Children.

Egglesfield, however, is a completely different scenario…

"He's one of my best friends so I'm extremely sad to see him go," Jacobsen said of the hunkster. "But he's a trouper…He was consoling me today. He said, 'Steph, it's just the business.' "

Jacobsen said Simpson and Egglesfield called her to break the news. "Our cast is very close," she said.

In happier Melrose news, Jacobsen said Heather Locklear "slid right in" with the cast. "She's incredibly easy to talk to," Jacobsen gushed. "You wouldn't imagine it because she's 'Heather Locklear'—I mean, she's kind of a big deal—but yet she's one of the loveliest people and so laid back."

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If you haven't already, you must read Watch With Kristin's exclusive interview with Colin Egglesfield!