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By Annabel Rackham
Entertainment reporter
The creator of Emmy-award winning drama Succession says the upcoming fourth season will be its last.
Jesse Armstrong said in an interview with The New Yorker that he "never thought this could go on forever".
The show, which follows Logan Roy, the owner of a media empire and his family, will air for the final time next month.
Armstrong, who also wrote Fresh Meat and Peep Show, said he and the writers on the show have been planning its end since 2021.
"I feel deeply conflicted. I quite enjoy this period when we're editing - where the whole season is there but we haven't put it out yet. I like the interregnum," he said.
"And I also quite liked the period where me and my close collaborators knew that this was probably it, or this was it, but hadn't had to face up to it in the world."
The HBO series, which stars Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong and Sarah Snook, has won 13 Emmys, two Golden Globes and a Bafta.
Armstrong said HBO, which confirmed the show was ending by retweeting The New Yorker article on Twitter, let him have full control of when the show would end.
"HBO has been generous and would probably have done more seasons, and they have been nice about saying, 'It's your decision'," he said.
Armstrong, who also wrote for The Thick of It and Veep, says he hasn't ruled out other shows about the Roy family.
"I do think that this succession story that we were telling is complete," he said.
"This is the muscular season to exhaust all our reserves of interest, and I think there's some pain in all these characters that's really strong. But the feeling that there could be something else in an allied world, or allied characters, or some of the same characters - that's also strong in me."