Apex Legends doesn't shut down completely

As mentioned in the title, the game doesn't shut down completely even if I leave the game. The screen goes down, but it is shown as running on steam, and when I go into the task manager it shows the game still running, as seen in the attached screenshot. It is annoying, not only because it somehow breaks steam and makes re-opening apex legends impossible, but also because it takes up memory space which occasionally makes my other games crash. A quick google search showed that EAC was the cause behind similar problems a few years ago, but unsure if that is still the case.

PS. Can I uninstall EAC and still play ranked Apex? No one seems to have a clear answer, and I'm hesitant to try it myself lest I get myself banned.