Media personality-cum-opposition activist Ksenia Sobchak announced Sunday that she is leaving the "Dom 2" reality show she has presented since its inception in 2004.
"Yesterday I didn't extend my contract with the 'Dom 2' television show. It was my personal decision, I took it a long time ago. Thanks to everyone who worked with me all these years," Sobchak wrote on social-networking site Twitter.
Sobchak added that the final show with her at the helm would be broadcast in five days' time.
Rumors had long circulated that Sobchak would quit the show since she took up the opposition's cause in December, when she began rallying alongside protest leaders calling for free and fair elections. Sobchak's interest in opposition politics and work presenting low-brow television were an incongruous mix to many in the protest movement.
But the celebrity repeatedly denied reports that she would leave the program she had presented for roughly eight years.
"Dom 2" is the longest-running reality show worldwide, with more than 2,500 episodes already shown. The show draws some of the largest TV audiences in Russia and is broadcast on the THT channel.
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