The Tragedy Of Jonathan Taylor Thomas Is Heartbreaking

Forget grunge music, “Friends” and Tamagotchis. If you were a young girl growing up in the 1990s, then Jonathan Taylor Thomas was the ultimate in pop culture. The baby-faced actor first attained pin-up status when he landed the role of Tim ‘The Toolman’ Taylor’s middle child Randy on the long-running sitcom, “Home Improvement.” During his eight-year stint on the ABC hit, he also voiced Simba in the classic Disney animation “The Lion King,” appeared on the big screen in period adventure “Tom and Huck,” and entered the Kids Choice’ Hall of Fame.

Then at the peak of his success, Thomas essentially said goodbye to the world of fame. He’s since intermittently popped up in various films and TV shows, of course, including a reunion with Tim Allen on “Last Man Standing”. But the man whose posters once adorned countless bedroom walls seems more than happy to keep his showbiz years a distant memory. That doesn’t mean that everything in Thomas’ life has gone his own way, though. From teenage burnout and speculation on his sexuality to public feuds and battles with his physical and mental health, here’s a look at nine times his story bordered on the tragic.

Just like Ben Affleck, Kristin Chenoweth, and Lisa Kudrow, Jonathan Taylor Thomas is a celebrity who’s had to deal with debilitating headaches while pursuing a career in Hollywood. And when you learn of the star’s chaotic schedule during his peak years, it’s little wonder his health was affected.

In a 1994 interview with People to promote his voiceover role in Disney classic “The Lion King,” Thomas revealed that he spent nearly ten hours on the set of sitcom “Home Improvement” in which he had to fit in a full day of schoolwork too. And when the rest of his peers were busy enjoying their summer holidays, the child star had to spend his filming “Man of the House” with Chevy Chase in Vancouver.

Thomas explained that he had little time to spend on his hobbies like collecting sports cards and fishing, and he had no time whatsoever for any romantic pursuits. “You have school, friends, learning your lines, and making sure your performance is up to speed,” he added about his plate-spinning act. “I can’t tell you how many shows I’ve done with full-blown migraine headaches.”

You couldn’t walk down a magazine aisle in the mid-’90s without seeing Jonathan Taylor Thomas’ cherubic face staring back at you. This was an era, you may remember, in which the child star appeared to dominate pop culture, whether through his regular stint as Randy Taylor on “Home Improvement,” voiceover role in “The Lion King,” or turns in teen flicks “Tom and Huck” and “Wild America”.

But Taylor himself had little interest in becoming such a heartthrob. In a 1996 profile, Premiere magazine remarked how instead of wanting to become the next Macaulay Culkin, the youngster would much rather be the next Ron Howard. “How serious do you take this stuff?,” asked Taylor (via Vice), who at the time was only 14 years old. “I think most [fallen child stars] weren’t prepared for the end. I mean, it’s not the end of your life! You can’t base your life around one thing.” 

Thomas also addressed the hardships of dealing with an intense fan base in a chat with The New York Times three years later: “You are a part of their life, and there is a lot that is owed them. But it’s difficult because you want to
make everyone happy, but if you try to do that, you’re setting yourself up for failure.” But as he told Conan O’Brien, if there was one thing he hated more about being a pin-up than anything else, it was the shortening of his name to JTT!

It’s hard to imagine any late-night chat show host explicitly asking a guest about their sexuality in today’s more enlightened times. But back in the 1990s, the recently and suspiciously black-eyed Jay Leno believed it was perfectly acceptable to question Jonathan Taylor Thomas about the speculation that he was gay.

The “Home Improvement” star was only in his late teens when he appeared on “The Tonight Show” in 1998 and had to deal with the host poking his nose into his private life in front of millions of viewers at home. Thomas did handle the intrusion like a pro, though, answering, “Pretty much in Hollywood you’re not anyone until it’s rumored that you’re gay, so I wasn’t that upset about it.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but they’re rumors and you should always be kind of careful with that internet stuff,” the wise beyond his years, and much wiser than Leno, actor added. Remarkably, this wasn’t the end of the speculation. Thomas was then asked directly if he was gay, to which he answered in the negative before a pushy Leno continued, “If you want to come out, it’s fine.” Thankfully, such questioning didn’t deter the star from taking LGBTQ roles: a year later, he played a bisexual hustler in “Speedway Junky” and then in 2000 he starred as a closeted teenager in the TV movie, “Common Ground.” 

Jonathan Taylor Thomas only appeared in three episodes of the eighth and last ever season of “Home Improvement” and missed its finale altogether after deciding to focus his attention on his academic duties. It was a decision which appeared to rile both of the actors who’d played his on-screen parents since the early 1990s.

“He said it was about going to school, but then he did some films,” Tim Allen, better known as Randy’s dad Tim ‘The Toolman’ Taylor, told TV Guide about Thomas’ departure (via New York Post). “Did he want to do films? Did he want to go to school? It got mixed up in the translation. I mentioned [publicly] that I was confused. I don’t think he liked that.”

And Patricia Richardson, aka Randy’s mother Jill, was arguably even more disappointed that Thomas had snubbed the show that launched him to fame during its swansong: “It’s a pretty sore point around here,” she told the same magazine. “I think there were a lot of bad feelings all along. I don’t think it’s a good idea that he didn’t show up …” Thankfully, the three managed to patch up their differences and went on to rebuild their personal and professional relationships. But thanks to the show’s dark secrets, including Zachery Ty Bryan’s various troubles with the law, a full-blown reunion now seems unlikelier than ever. 

In 2013, Jonathan Taylor Thomas surprised everyone when he acted for the first time in eight years with a guest spot on “Last Man Standing,” the family sitcom fronted by his former on-screen dad and convicted felon Tim Allen. But according to the latter, the child star had to battle some self-doubting demons before making his return.

“He worried whether he still had it, and he didn’t want to do this because he’s had other stuff in mind,” Allen told Yahoo! Entertainment at the time. “But they asked him, and he agreed to it.” The funnyman also revealed that he, too, was shocked by this decision because of Thomas’ inherent shyness.

The actor best known as Randy Taylor hadn’t been a total stranger to the “Last Man Standing” set, though. He’d spent much of the previous year shadowing director John Pasquin in a bid to learn the ropes behind the scenes. And Thomas’ dedication paid off when he was given the opportunity to helm three episodes of the ABC hit.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas and his brother Joel had to deal with the divorce of their parents in 1991 when mom Claudine and dad Stephen decided to go their own separate ways. The former went on to guide the child star’s career after he landed the role of Tim Taylor’s middle child Randy in “Home Improvement,” but several of the show’s stars have since implied that she may have been a little too controlling.

“Jonathan’s life at that point wasn’t necessarily all his own life though,” Richard Karn, who played sidekick Al, told News.com.au in 2016 about Thomas’ decision to largely bypass the last season of “Home Improvement.” “His mum was also deciding what he should or shouldn’t do. That comes down to a particular parental guidance idea that she had. I think Jonathan really would have rather done the episode. I don’t think he was holding out because he was mad at anybody.”

It was a viewpoint that appeared to be shared by the actor who played Randy’s mom Jill, Patricia Richardson, who told TV Guide that she didn’t think her on-screen son always got the best advice. Internet message boards at the time were awash with theories that the heartthrob and his mom had an unhealthy co-dependency.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas hasn’t appeared on our screens since guesting as John Baker in Tim Allen’s second most famous sitcom “Last Man Standing” in 2016. And without any Instagram, TikTok, or any other social media accounts to his name, it’s obvious that the former child star is more than content to live his personal life outside of the spotlight, too.

The press, however, appear to keep treating Thomas’ absence from the showbiz world as something worthy of a freak show. Indeed, on the rare occasions the actor is pictured out and about in public, he’s essentially described as reclusive as tragic fitness guru Richard Simmons. It’s surely only a matter of time before there’s a ‘Where Is JTT’ podcast, too.

“Jonathan Taylor Thomas, 39, seen for the first time in almost EIGHT YEARS,” the Daily Mail pretty much screamed in 2021 after the one-time pin-up was photographed walking his dogs on the streets of California. “Home Improvement’s Jonathan Taylor Thomas unrecognisable as makes rare public appearance,” noted Mirror two years later when he was spotted enjoying a drink in a fetching beanie hat and Lacoste sweater. To paraphrase a certain Britney Spears fan, “leave JTT alone.”

Jonathan Taylor Thomas doesn’t have any regrets about taking time out from the showbiz world at the height of his success in the late 1990s. “I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old,” the former child star told People in 2013, the same year he returned to the limelight with a guest spot on sitcom “Last Man Standing.”

“I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break,” continued Thomas, who went on to study at Harvard, the Columbia University School of General Studies, and Scotland’s St. Andrews University, the latter at the same time as the future King of England. “To sit in a big library amongst books and students, that was pretty cool. It was a novel experience for me.”

Thomas, now a member of SAG-AFTRA’s national board, also doesn’t believe that his heartthrob years define him: “I never took the fame too seriously. When I think back on the time, I look at it with a wink. I focus on the good moments I had, not that I was on a lot of magazine covers.”