Sara Gilbert is leaving 'The Talk'

Actress and "The Talk" co-host and executive producer Sara Gilbert says she is leaving the daytime panel-discussion show that she developed in 2010.

"This is hard to do and something … that I have been struggling with for a while and going back and forth [on], but I've decided that it's time for me to leave the show at the end of this season," Gilbert, 44, told fellow panelists Eve, Carrie Ann Inaba, Sharon Osbourne and Sheryl Underwood on Tuesday's edition of the CBS series.

As the studio audience strongly objected, Gilbert went on to assure that, "I obviously love it here and … this was extremely difficult." She noted that in addition to "The Talk" she is simultaneously a star and a producer of "The Conners," ABC's successor to the sitcom "Roseanne," "and I loved it and felt totally empowered, but also, If I'm being honest about it, I think my life was slightly out of balance and I wasn't able to spend as much time with my three kids as I'd like, or time for myself."

Gilbert and her wife, singer-songwriter Linda Perry, have a son, Rhodes, 4, and Gilbert has son Levi, 14, and daughter Sawyer, 11, with former partner Allison Adler.

"I'm starting to develop more things to produce and I'm having opportunities to act, and I'm just feeling like I don't know how I'm going to do it all," Gilbert went on, adding, "My youngest is four years old, and I still haven't made his baby book, y'know, and … you sit and you think, 'Oh my God!' My daughter is looking at hers last night and I was, like, 'Ahhhh, he's going to figure it out soon!' "

Expressing her affection for the hosts, crew and staff, Gilbert said she planned to return occasionally. "I'll guest co-host. You're not going to get rid of me, so I'll be around."