Breathe easy, y’all…Susan Kelechi Watson says Beth Pearson to stay on ‘This Is Us’

Susan Kelechi Watson, the actress who plays Beth Pearson on NBC’s This Is Us, wants to assure fans that her character is not going anywhere.

Watson plays the wife of Sterling K. Brown’s character, Randall Pearson on the popular show about the ups and downs of a family of white parents, their two surviving triplets, and their adopted black son. After the gut-wrenching episode earlier this year in which family patriarch Jack Pearson died when a crock pot exploded, rumors circulated that Beth Pearson would be the next to be killed off. Fans pushed back, launching campaigns to plead with NBC to keep Beth alive.

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Watson, 36, said the pushback from This Is Us fans made her feel the love.

“It’s really always cool as an actor to have a character that people want to see the best for,” Watson tells Glamour for its November cover story. “To know that people are behind her, to know that people are rocking with her and get her.”

Earlier this year, executive producer and co-show runner Isaac Aptaker offered the same assurance, telling Glamour, “Beth’s OK,” and adding, “I don’t know where that came from, but there’s no conspiracy.”

Watson, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants who grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island, now lives in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The accent you hear on TV is authentic. She spends a lot of her free time working with Drama Club, a nonprofit that provides mentorship to young people who are incarcerated or involved in the court system.

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Watson, who also starred on The Blacklist and NCIS, studied at both Howard University and Oxford tells Glamour she is getting specific now with plans for her life, and envisions herself being married, maybe with a child.

But Beth Pearson also is going to blossom, she says.

“I feel like she’s going to start a community project that’s based on one of her artistic passions,” Watson says. “She also has a background in dance, which you’ll see this season.”

She adds, “And still together with Randall of course. I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”

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