Nick has cleared up many things about his split from Ghost Adventures, but fans still have a few burning questions about what really happened.
There is truly something to be said for independent film passion-projects that eventually go on to become official, syndicated shows which are broadcast to thousands of people worldwide.
However, for some members of Ghost Adventures’ rag-tag crew this once-in-a-lifetime dream scenario turned out to be quite the nightmare.
Why Nick left Ghost Adventures
Most longtime fans of the Ghost Adventures franchise will likely already know that all hell broke loose in 2014 when Nick Groff unexpectedly left the show after season 10.
To be clear, Nick has been rather adamant that he never “left” the show, so it is perhaps more accurate to say that he no longer took part in the filming, producing or editing of the show after season 10.
But although he has now shared quite a few details about what exactly happened in the months leading up to his departure from the show – we simply cannot help but feel like there are still some details missing.
Nick’s run on Ghost Adventures
For those unfamiliar with the Ghost Adventures lore, Nick came up with the idea to start filming his paranormal investigations (alongside his Ghost Adventures co-creator, Zak Bagans) when he was basically fresh out of film school.
They later turned their home videos into a full-fledged independent documentary, which was produced by 4Reel Productions in 2006 before the Travel Channel turned it into the series we know today.
All in all, Nick has spent a total of nine years (seven on the television show), before the big split, as follows:
Season | Initial air dates |
Season 1 | October 17, 2008 to December 5, 2008 |
Season 2 | June 5, 2009 to July 24, 2009 |
Season 3 | November 6, 2009 to January 8, 2010 |
Season 4 | September 17, 2010 to June 10, 2011 |
Season 5 | September 23, 2011 to December 16, 2011 |
Season 6 | March 9, 2012 to July 20, 2012 |
Season 7 | September 14, 2012 to April 19, 2013 |
Season 8 | August 16, 2013 to November 15, 2013 |
Season 9 | February 15, 2014 to July 12, 2014 |
Season 10 | October 4, 2014 to March 7, 2015 |
What really happened behind the scenes before Nick’s departure
According to what Nick shared in this 2023 TikTok video, his departure from Ghost Adventures was more complicated than everyone thought.
As Nick tells it, one of his former Ghost Adventures cast mates (Nick does not mention names, but it is pretty obvious who he is referring to) had told the producers that he would not show up to the set if Nick was also there.
This resulted in about two months of being, in Nick’s words, “dragged along”, and repeatedly being told that he was not needed at the filming locations, until his lawyer got involved and he ultimately chose to move on to new projects.
A recap of everything we know so far
Although Nick has been rather vague about the exact conversations around the time that he “left” Ghost Adventures, he has addressed a few other issues over the years. This includes the confirmation that he was never officially fired from the show.
Nick has cleared up the fact that he never did “a bad thing” (alluding to a series of rather snide Tweets from his Ghost Adventures co-creator, Zak). He also added that he never cheated on his partner, just for good measure.
And for fans who have fallen out of the loop on former Ghost Adventures cast member drama, both Nick and Dakota Laden have now publicly stated that Zak has shown a lack of support for their new projects.
In fact, Nick went as far as inferring that Zak had reportedly blatantly tried to blacklist or block his new projects from getting off the ground.
The unsolved Ghost Adventures mysteries
There is clearly a lot of bad blood between Nick and what remains of the Ghost Adventures cast.
And while we certainly have more details now than we did in 2014 when this was all happening, there are still a few things that we would love to see cleared up.
Nick shared during a segment on The Paranormal Channel on YouTube that he would likely never share all the details of what happened, simply because he feels like talking about it just breeds more negativity.
However, to this day, we still do not have answers about the rumors that Ghost Adventures started faking evidence and “encounters” at the time of Nick’s departure or about what exactly went down between Nick and Zack to cause all the animosity that we have witnessed throughout the years.