U.S. viewers who tuned into the Hallmark Channel’s morning show “Home & Family” on Friday were surprised by the conspicuous absence of co-host Mark Steines, who has hosted the show since 2012.

Had viewers checked the channel’s Twitter account on Thursday night, however, they would have seen the brief tweet announcing the departure of the 53-year-old Steines, stating that Hallmark “has parted ways” with the former Entertainment Tonight host while wishing him “all the best success in his future endeavours.”

As Deadline reports, Steines’ abrupt departure from the show was addressed on the air by co-host Debbie Matenopolous, who referenced Steines in some on-camera remarks that raised more questions than they answered.

“I’m here to share some news, and the family has joined me because we truly are a family and while we just had a really great show, we have a very hard announcement to deliver,” Matenopoulos said, her eyes tearing up.

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“Our dear friend, our very good friend, and my wonderful co-host for years, Mr. Mark Steines is no longer with ‘Home & Family’,” she continued.

“He has been an amazing friend to all of us here at Hallmark Channel, the cast, the crew and a wonderful friend to all of you at home as well. And we are grateful to Mark, and we want to thank him from the bottom of our hearts for six of the most incredible years that he has had here hosting this incredible show that he helped build. He really did,” she added.

“He’s been here from the beginning and a lot of this show has Mark’s handprint on it, so we support him in everything he does in the future, his future endeavours,” said Matenopoulos. “We will miss him dearly and we will think about him fondly and often and we thank you all at home for your kindness and understanding and your support and for being part of our family everyday.”

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If there are unanswered questions about why Hallmark “parted ways” with Steines, they’re apparently also unanswered to Steines himself, who is as puzzled as viewers about why he’s no longer on the show.

“Hallmark gave us some vague reasons regarding ‘creative’ and specifically said it was not for cause,” Steines’ rep tells People. “We have received nothing but positive reviews of him as the host of ‘Hallmark Home & Family’. The show just received another Emmy nomination — that was the third. We know ratings have been up, and if you watch the episode this morning, you will see the shock and sadness by the cast when they had to make this announcement on air.”

The rep gave a similar statement to Deadline. “The network’s given explanation for making the change was ‘creative reasons’; there were no other reasons given,” the rep said, adding that “we had had nothing but positive reviews and feedback from Hallmark for the entirety of the time he has been on the show including this year.”