Shenae Grimes-Beech Talks Abrupt End to “90210”: 'We Were Robbed' (Exclusive)

The actress starred as Annie Wilson on '90210' from 2008 to 2013 following a four-year stint on 'Degrassi'

More than 10 years after the final episode aired, 90210’s Shenae Grimes-Beech is opening up about the series' "frustrating" end.

The actress, 34, who starred as Annie Wilson on the ​​Beverly Hills, 90210 spinoff from 2008 to 2013, tells PEOPLE that learning the show was getting cancelled after five seasons came as a shock — especially since there were seemingly plans for season 6.

“I do feel like it wasn't finished,” she tells PEOPLE. “I feel like we were robbed a little bit, and that was very frustrating for — I feel like I can speak for a lot of us when I say that it was very frustrating — the way that it happened. I thought it was pretty disrespectful the way that it went down, because we'd given so much of our lives to that show and those characters.”

The never-made season 6 was set to have the characters jump ahead five years, which Grimes-Beech says would have served as “the closing chapter.”

Instead, Grimes-Beech learned the news right as she was about to head to set to film what would ultimately be the series finale.

“I still — it makes me choke up and I get goosebumps — because it was like nobody was expecting it. We all had a love-hate relationship with that show. We did. We all had a love-hate relationship with each other,” she says.

Related: '90210' 's Shenae Grimes-Beech and AnnaLynne McCord Explain How They Settled Their Former Feud

But, she adds, “To get told like that, at that time, when we didn't have time to write, our writers didn't have time to write a banging series finale, this is how 90210 ends, we had already filmed three days, so they were literally just scrambling going, "Holy s---, how do we now make this goodbye forever?' "

Grimes-Beech remembers while the news brought her to tears, not everyone was as moved.

“I remember AnnaLynne [McCord], she's like, ‘Why are you crying right now? We've all wanted to get on to the next chapter of our lives. This is so weird that you're so devastated.’ I'm like, ‘Well, yeah, but I didn't actually think it was ending. This is everything. This is my whole identity,’ ” she recalls.

For Grimes-Beech, the role on the series came directly after the actress’ four-year stint as Darcy Edwards on another beloved teen drama, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which she first auditioned for at just 13 years old. After 10 years on two successful shows, she was faced with what she calls “a massive identity crisis” that would last for years to come.

“Because I came straight from Degrassi, it was like I'd spent 10 years, really formative years, on set, on camera, on shows that were quite beloved by the people who did watch them, and just working more than living any life,” she explains. “So I went from the 13-year-old who booked Degrassi, to the 23-year-old who was about to get married, and was like, ‘Holy s---, where did a decade of my life go? Who am I right now? Who am I without all of these other things?’ It was wild.”

She decided it was time to take a step back from acting all together following 90210. "I am never doing that again,” she remembers thinking.

Instead, she took two years off and tried to figure out what it was she wanted to do moving forward. While she had plans to enroll in college as a teenager, booking 90210 sent her down a different path, so with her newfound free time, Grimes-Beech took marketing courses at the University of Southern California.

“I was like, ‘Okay, well, I'm not going to go to university for four years right now, I'm adulting already. I don't have that in me, to dedicate four years to getting a degree in something and starting fresh completely. So maybe I get back into acting and I make that choice for myself now as an adult,’ ” she remembers thinking after some time off.

Related: Pregnant Shenae Grimes-Beech Is 'Ready to Embrace' Post-Baby Body and Reject Pressure to Snap Back

While that return was a “slow roll," it was on her own terms. She landed a role on a Canadian series called The Detail in which she played “a homicide detective with a drinking problem," she says.

“It was just unbelievable to finally be seen as an adult person with issues that weren't the girl next door gone bad,” she says. “It was so exciting for me to have that opportunity.”

The show was not picked up for a second season, which Grimes-Beech calls the “biggest blessing in disguise,” as she was pregnant with her first child. Looking back on it all, she has no regrets.

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“That's been the road,” she says. “And then when I had a kid, I was like, ‘Okay, well now how do I take my lack of degree and my long list of acting credits on a résumé and figure out how to carve out a new path for myself?’ And that's how I've landed here, working from home, creating content, thriving with influencer marketing being such a booming industry, and making a name for myself in a similar but different [way.]”

Grimes-Beech, who has been married to husband Josh Beech for 11 years, now creates lifestyle content for her 500,000-plus followers on Instagram and TikTok, a career move she says has given her the flexibility that working as a full-time actor would not offer. Though as her two kids get older, she might start “dabbling in acting” yet again, she adds.

“I think everything happens for a reason, and it's a pretty damn beautiful life that I have,” she says of her journey so far.  “It's not as glamorous to outsiders as being Annie from 90210, or Darcy on Degrassi, but it feels so much better to me.”

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